Am I entitiled to get a refund from my dentist for botched NHS treatment?

Katie6

Hi there,

I have a veneer on my front tooth. It has been done several times by the same dentist, and it has broken each time. I last had it done less than a week ago. It cost £120 and yesterday it broke yet again. Rather than get it done again by the same dentist, I would like to get it done elsewhere, so I rang to request a refund. The dentist has said she can't give me a refund for NHS treatment and has told me to come in to get it done again.

Can my dentist refuse to give me a refund for NHS treatment? I'm getting frustrated because I can't afford to keep having time off work when this dentist keeps doing a bad job.

If I do have the right to get a refund, does anyone know where I can get further information to back up my argument (from some official source!)?

Many thanks,

Katie

Toothsmith

I take it you're not in England or Wales. because $120 is not an NHS fee (My laptop doesn't do pound signs! - It was cheap!!!).

Technically, he's right. Although he would be obliged to do it again, he's under no obligation to give a refund.

Personally, if something kept going wrong like that though, I'd happily give a patient their money back. NHS dentists tend to have queues

It strikes me that something is being missed though. Do you bite your fingernails? Do you grind your teeth at night? I once had a patient who broke veneers, and it turned out she loves chops, and getting every bit of meat off the bone with her teeth!

Veneers are fairly weak things anyway, so they can break easily. But when stuck to the tooth, they gain strength from the tooth.

I've a feeling that this veneer could be replaced any number of times, but unless the REASON for the breaking is found, you will always have the problem.

The truth is though, that if you made any sort of formal complaint - it would probably be resolved by you getting your money back. Ask for the practice's in house complaints proceedure first though That's "Stage 1" as it were.



EDIT - I would also avoid using words like 'botched' when dealing with the practice. It puts people's backs up and puts them on the defensive. If you wrote a letter stating pretty much what you've written here about it being hard to get time off work, and you feel you've given the dentist a good chance to sort things out, but now you've lost confidence a bit and all you would like is your money back so you can get it sorted elsewhere. Then you're far more likely to get what you want quickly, rather than going in with all guns blazing and talking of 'botched' proceedures.

olly300

Toothsmith wrote: »

I take it you're not in England or Wales. because $120 is not an NHS fee (My laptop doesn't do pound signs! - It was cheap!!!).
.

Toothsmith if you are using windows all you need to do is change your locale and keyboard to English UK. Then the pound sign is the shift and number 3 key, and the dollar sign is shift and number 4.

In fact you can probably google and find the layout of an English UK keyboard as a graphic which you can download until you memorise the keys.

Toothsmith

Thanks Olly - tried that.

There IS a £ sign on the laptop (I'm at home now on a different PC!!!) It's just it comes up as # when I press it (shift & 3 as you said). also, @ comes up as " - which I though was going to make emails very difficult, until I discovered that if I press " I get @ !!! If you see what I mean!!

I tried this with # to see if I got a £, but all I got was another # !!

It was a 'manager's special' at Comet, and only cost £75. I can see why, but it works well for what I use it for which is writing letters in my surgery, managing my accounts (unless I need to write £) and replying to MSErs about dental problems!

Cheers

T.S.

stebiz

Toothsmith wrote: »

Thanks Olly - tried that.

There IS a £ sign on the laptop (I'm at home now on a different PC!!!) It's just it comes up as # when I press it (shift & 3 as you said). also, @ comes up as " - which I though was going to make emails very difficult, until I discovered that if I press " I get @ !!! If you see what I mean!!

I tried this with # to see if I got a £, but all I got was another # !!

It was a 'manager's special' at Comet, and only cost £75. I can see why, but it works well for what I use it for which is writing letters in my surgery, managing my accounts (unless I need to write £) and replying to MSErs about dental problems!

Cheers

T.S.

Hi Toothsmith,

You helped me out once with advice on a bad tooth so please take this advice as well meant. I am in IT.

It is definitely the settings on your keyboard. Assuming you have XP. Go to control panel then Regional and Language.Click on Languages then details. I would bet my front teeth (get the pun) that it is set to USA. Set both the Default Input Language and Installed Services to UK. Anything with USA highlight and remove.

Good Luck.
Stebiz

Katie6

Thanks ever so much for your help Toothsmith! It's reassuring to get advice from someone in dentistry.
You're right - I've had the treatment done in Scotland, but I don't bite my nails or grind my teeth, so I'm not sure what's causing this.
And don't worry - I certainly won't used the word 'botched' I just used it in the title in the hope that my post would get more attention!

Thanks again,

Katie

Toothsmith

stebiz wrote: »

Hi Toothsmith,

You helped me out once with advice on a bad tooth so please take this advice as well meant. I am in IT.

It is definitely the settings on your keyboard. Assuming you have XP. Go to control panel then Regional and Language.Click on Languages then details. I would bet my front teeth (get the pun) that it is set to USA. Set both the Default Input Language and Installed Services to UK. Anything with USA highlight and remove.

Good Luck.
Stebiz

££££££££££££££££££

and even

@@@@@@@@@@@@@ on the right key!!!!

Thanks Stebiz.

I'd changed the language, but as you said, there were other US settings i there that I've now changed as well.