You may have a $600 smartphone and a $1000 tablet, but how much did you spend on your toothbrush? As more everyday objects are connected to the Internet, our gadget collections grow far beyond smartphones.  One startup is on a mission to change your perspective on dental care, and now dental insurance. 

Can you honestly say that you brush your teeth at least two times a day and for two minutes or longer every time? Some may say yes but oral health problems still occur because of poor oral hygiene. To address this, Beam Technologies is launching a different kind of dental health insurance to motivate preventative dental care. 

Having established a market for the Beam connected toothbrush, the company is hoping to use its data-driven approach to incentivizing dental care to build out a rewards program with Beam Perks, alongside a nationwide group dental insurance plan equal to or better than other offerings on the market, all for the same price or often less than the cost of coverage alone. The insurance program includes 200,000 access points in all 50 states, designed to work seamlessly with Beam Perks.

Beam Perks is a program that companies big and small can extend to their employees to ensure good dental hygiene. It includes Beam’s connected toothbrush (the Beam Brush),  and quarterly shipment of toothpaste, floss and replacement toothbrush heads. Members subscribed to Beam Perks will have to download the Beam mobile app, which tracks brushing behavior over time and encourages positive change through gamification, to further enhance the comprehensive experience.

Why dental insurance?

According to Beam, over 100 million American adults live without dental insurance, as it is often considered a benefit reserved for the employed. Beam also pointed out how the Affordable Care Act barely addresses oral hygiene, adding to the reasons for Beam’s latest initiative. 

Providing insurance has always been a part of Beam’s plan as they saw a lack of innovation in the dental insurance space. With the new group dental insurance, Beam aims to reinvent how the market works.

The system

The Beam Brush itself has “quadrant buzz” and “auto off” features that encourages users to brush all four quadrants of your mouth, for a full two minutes. The brush also connects to your smartphone and offer in-app features such as Star Points, Beam Score, challenges and timers that tracks and reward great brushing habits.

Keeping things accurate

According to Beam, “The brush is equipped with an internal timing mechanism and six-axis motion sensor that records every brushing event. Also, the Beam Brush has an internal memory that stores around three months of brushing events without syncing via Bluetooth. Once synced, the data is stored on a secure, HIPPA-compliant server.”

Data-related classism?

In line with several emerging initiatives from insurance companies (think Progressive Snapshot that tracks and rewards good driver behavior), Beam’s group insurance program and Beam Perks raise an important question around the future of insurance regarding the manner in which data is collected, and how consumers are treated as a result of that data. Some would say we’re entering an era of data-related classism for better or worse, where consumers receive different insurance rates based on data from smart homes, connected cars, wearables, etc.

As far as Beam is concerned, data-related insurance incentives are just part of the solution. “Health care needs to be more personalized and accessible across the board,” Beam explained in an email statement. “Data is just one part (re: not a silver bullet) that can be part of a larger ecosystem. This can be challenging because folks who generally can afford smart homes and connected cars are not always the same folks the need lower cost insurance.

“That’s why the Beam brush is not only the first connected toothbrush, but also the lowest-priced sonic electric brush on the market. We’ve taken that same mentality in designing our dental insurance portfolio.”

Mellisa Tolentino contributed to this article.

Image source: Beam