advice please xxx

Savvy_Sue

I'm no dentist, but I would expect that the materials for a filling are a small proportion of a dentist's charges. What you're paying for is their time and expertise. And a child's filling isn't going to take any less time than an adult's - possibly more because you're working in an even more confined space. And children aren't always the easiest of patients!

It may well be that it just doesn't make sense to have more than one price list for fillings depending on the size of the hole. After all, adults sometimes only need tiny fillings too, but you're not necessarily going to know how big it is before you do it.

Toothsmith

Desired_opal wrote: »

i am not disputing paying for my daughters treatment im disputing the fact that an adult filling was charged at the same price as my daughters she only has tiny baby teeth at the moment .
i do understand that dentists need to earn a wage too but surley the cost of a childs treatment should be cheaper than an adult ??

Sue has given a good answer here.

Why should the kids filling be cheaper?

Kids often need more time, more explanations, and generally a slower approach than adults.

With kids, I tend to do white fillings as a matter of routine, as if you are the first dentist to fill a tooth, white filling can be the best material to use. White filling though needs time and care to get right - particularly if you think that that filling needs to be there for a lot longer!

Kids also need more care and attention for everything from the examination (You have to look carefully at how the teeth are developing as well as everything else you'd look for in fully developed adults) through to all the advice on how to look after their teeth properly.

If anything, I could make a much better case for treating adults more cheaply than children!

Having said all that though, I do tend to have cheaper prices for children. But the vast majority of my children patients have a parent or two with me as well as grandparents.

If you accept that it takes a certain amount of money to run a dental practice, then those costs have to be met by the patients seen at that practice.

The fairest way to do it is to simply charge by the minute for how long every single proceedure on every single patient takes. And add on any extra costs like technician fees or any unusually expensive materials needed.

This would be unpopular though, as you could only ever give anyone - particularly new patients who you have no experience of working on - a very rough idea of costs until you'd actually done the job. Plus - it would be a bit like a taxi ride for the patient as they watched the minutes tick by. Not conducive to a relaxing experience!!

The other way to do it would be to produce a price list based on how long it usually takes you to do certain things. This is how most dentists do it. There will be tricky things, or patients where you might loose a bit (But as you get to know the tricky patients you can add things onto their bill) But there will also be times when things go well, and you come out ahead.

To make one group of people cheaper than another, you will have to bump up the price of one treatment to balance up the cut in the other.

So - yes, you can treat children cheaper, but you have to slightly increase the price to adults to make up for this.

As I said, in my practice, I am happy to do this. There may be dentists out there who consider that unfair though.

If you were a childless adult, would you be happy at paying an extra £5 per filling so that someone elses kids could get their fillings cheaper? Or would you feel that if they'd fed them the sugary stuff that made the holes, then they should pay the price of getting them fixed?

Difficult one!

tirednewdad

Can't really add anymore to that.

The dentist is intitled to place amalgam fillings in as an NHS treatment. Personally i tend to use white fillings that release fluoride (Glass Ionomer fillings) which help prevent reoccuring decay (not as strong as silver fillings though).

I have never seen inside your daughters mouth, but i suspect the brushing would need to be improved if she requires a hygienist appointment. I see alot of parents who say how well thier children look after thier teeth and how good thier diet is. Reception then inform me of the cans of coke that they are drinking in the waiting room.

Any clean should be available on the NHS as part of the contract the dentist has with the local health board.

AMalgam fillings do contain mercury but it is a very small amount as it is bonded to other metals. The same amount of mercury that is released by replacing an existing Amalgam filling with another one is the same amount of mercury that is found in 8 cans of tuna.
As toothsmith said, White fillings have there own health concerns as some people believe that part of the ingrediants are carcinogenic- (not proven though)