Dental Hygienist

netlang

I have just been to my Dental hygienist (first time in 6 years). I am not sure how necessary it is to visit the hygienist if you have regular dental checkups.

I was waiting to go in and saw a notice stating that the Hygienist charges for NHS or Private patients are £42 per half hour appointment (i.e. £84 per hour). I mentally calculated this was £1.40 per minute.

I think this is an outrageous charge for low income families.

I was in the chair for 12 minutes (£16.80 worth?) but was charged £42 minimum charge for the pleasure (so the real cost of this visit for me is £3.50 per minute equating to £210 per hour). I must admit I do not feel that I have had value for money.

Now, I understand it takes 2 years to study to become a Dental Hygienist so there cannot be too much to it compared with other skilled professions and my research has shown that most Hygienists only work part-time 2 to 3 days per week (At £84 per hour x 6 hours over 3 days = £1512 per week or £6552 per month even if they split this with the refering dentist 50/50 they are still earning £3276 [gross] per month which is just under £40K [gross] per year.

I feel a change of career coming on. :rolleyes:

Toothsmith

OK,

Here we go!

The charge is for 1/2 hour of the hygienist surgery time. That's how much it would cost to run that surgery for 1/2 hour when you take into account the hygienist's wages, the support nurses wages (They normally work with support nowadays although some work alone) the running costs of all the equipment (including depreciaition) and the running cost of that square footage of the building. Also you need to factor in a few minutes at the end of the appointment in order to carry out all the cross infection control proceedures between patients.

It is not all the hygienist's wages. The average wage of a hygienist these days is about £23-30 per hour depending on experience and the type of practice and the area of the country. Some are self employed, some are employed by the dentist. Not a bad rate I grant you. If you want to change career, go for it. There is a shortage, and there are more training places these days. You'd be surprised at life on the 'inside' though. It's not all beer & skittles

I have heard tales of young asociate dentists who have given up being dentists in NHS practices to go and work as hygienists in city centre private practices. More money - less responsibility!!

Are you an NHS patient or a private one? According to the letter of the current Dental NHS contract, if the dentist feels a visit to the hygienist is NECESSARY for you, then it should be available on the NHS. The fact is though, that the practice will only be paid about £17 for the visit in this case, so it would soon go bankrupt. You would have grounds for a complaint though. But all that complaint would achieve in the long run would be to convince another dentist to leave the NHS altogether.

The new dental contract is even worse from the dentists point of view. All treatments currently available at the practice should be made available to NHS patients.

As for the 12 minute bit. That does seem a bit on the short side to me. Part of the job af the DH, as well as a really good clean, is an educational role. She should point out areas you could improve, products that may help you etc etc. If it was your first visit in 6 years, then you must be really good at brushing your teeth yourself, in which case frequent visits are not going to be that necessary.

On the other side of the coin though, since I've had hygienists at my practice, patients who I thought were on a fast train to full dentures have been completely turned around and remotivated to look after things really well. The DH has time to spend on this one area of dental health, and can really make a difference. This is why visits to the DH are just as necessary as dentist visits in most cases. Not all dentists employ DHs though, and they do that part themselves.

The charge for a 1/2 hour DH appointment at my practice is £60. Most of my patients are on Denplan though, and DH visits are included, so they don't pay extra. I feel I have a good team, and although I never mind people thinking I'm expensive, I would really be concerned if a patient of mine felt they didn't get 'value for money'

netlang

Thanks for this explanation Toothsmith it is very informative. I must admit the surgery has been recently kitted out with the very latest equipment and I am sure it does not come cheap. As I am a private patient I will look to transfer to another practice where I will get a little more for the money. To be fair my partner regularly visits her hygienist and at the age of 39 has never had a filling or tooth pulled so I guess it does work.

My business is in Documentation and the Printing fields and we too have to pay a lot of money for equipment and staff have trained for up to 6-7 years in some of these areas to reach the required standard for quality but we are having stiff competition from India and China where in most cases the quality is so awful and unusable but the costs are much cheaper and that is what people want "CHEAP".

I have even noticed that our own Government are not supporting British Printers by producing lots of educational printing for UK schools in China where they are not bogged down with red tape and regulations introduced by Mr Blair and colleagues. The average margin on a UK print project is around 5% so you need a lot of volume to make ends meet.

I think I wil point my daughter in the direction of Dental Hygiene as a career though sounds quite lucrative especially as there is a shortage.

Toothsmith

netlang wrote:

Thanks for this explanation Toothsmith it is very informative. I must admit the surgery has been recently kitted out with the very latest equipment and I am sure it does not come cheap. As I am a private patient I will look to transfer to another practice where I will get a little more for the money. To be fair my partner regularly visits her hygienist and at the age of 39 has never had a filling or tooth pulled so I guess it does work.

Are you happy with other aspects of the practice? Is this experience the final straw, or just a one off bad experience?

If the first, then, yes, it is important to feel comfortable and happy with your whole dental team and a change might be a good idea.

If the last, then the dentist may well appreciate a bit of feedback rather than loose a valued patient. A letter of constructive complaint may yeild positive results. (If you want to go down that route, I'd be happy to read over any letter you wanted to send if you PM it to me. (The trick is not to sound angry or confrontational, but to make the practice aware that you were unimpressed). Personally, if it had happened to a patient of mine, and I received a nice letter, then I would probably offer a free DH appointment in 6 months time, or something similar.

netlang wrote:

My business is in Documentation and the Printing fields and we too have to pay a lot of money for equipment and staff have trained for up to 6-7 years in some of these areas to reach the required standard for quality but we are having stiff competition from India and China where in most cases the quality is so awful and unusable but the costs are much cheaper and that is what people want "CHEAP".

They're trying it with us too with importing dentists from the develping world to work the NHS! Problem is , when they get here, a lot want to go back, as they're relatively better off where they were!

netlang wrote:

I think I wil point my daughter in the direction of Dental Hygiene as a career though sounds quite lucrative especially as there is a shortage.

What subjects is she doing & to what level? Dentistry is also an excellent career choice for a young lady. Bit longer study, much more interesting job than just cleaning teeth all day!