Cost of Dental Treatment

gerryw

Hi folks
My first ever post on this website, so please be gentle !!!
Hope you don't mind me contacting you for some info.
Over the past few weeks, I've had a couple of fillings / visited the dental hygienist twice (last time was this morning - in and out in about 2 minutes !!!) / and am now in the midst of root canal treatment, with filling from a few weeks ago probably going to require root treatment as well - some folk get all the luck, I know !
Would anybody be able to tell me roughly how much I should expect to be charged for all of this ?
I've seen a set of nhs charges on the web, and if all of the above fall into category 2 I think, it should only cost around £44 in total - would this be about right ?

Thanks very much for any help.

geri1965_2

Try posting in the Health & Beauty Moneysaving forum - Toothsmith is a dentist and should be able to answer all your queries.

Toothsmith

I can pop up all over the place though Geri!!

Hi gerryw welcome aboard!

Assuming you're in England, then your estimate is correct. If you'r in Wales, then it's still the same principal, but the cost of each band is a fe pence less.

If you're in Scotland or N.I. then they still run the older fee-per-item NHS system where every treatment has it's own price, and those costs add up - up to a maximum cost for a single treatment course, which I think is somewhere in the £300s.

Any dentist though, be it private or NHS, really shouldn't be carrying out treatment on anybody without them having an idea of how much that treatment is going to cost. It's all part of the 'informed consent' aspect. If you've not been informed, how can you possibly consent?!!

I would say it would be worth a phone call to the practice to check how much it will all cost, and that all treatment is being provided on the NHS.

gerryw

Thanks for the replies guys.
Sorry, should've stated that I'm up in Scotland.
According to the nhs charges, band 2 treatment is now around £45, which I would have thought covered the whole of the UK, but now I'm not sure after Toothsmith's reply.
Nothing has been mentioned by the dentist / receptionist's re. my costs, and I've been too scared to ask them :eek:

Is there a website where I could check Scottish nhs dental charges ?

If not, I'm back at my dentist this coming Friday for Root Treatment part III !

Thanks again for all your help.

Toothsmith

You should not be afraid to ask the charges.

If they were doing their job properly, you'd be told them whether you asked or not - and signed a piece of paper to show you have been told them.

The Scottish system is still like the 'old' English system, so bands do not apply up there. There is an individual cost for every treatment item.

I really would urge you to ring up the practice and find out what your bill will be.

The individual items that can be charged for is a list that has about 400 items on it. The chances of you coming up with an accurate guess even if you could find a website with the charges listed is very small indeed.

dacouch

I would have thought is would be 230 (Which is cockney for "Chinese Dentist")

nell35

Just Looked up the scottish dental website as I'm struggling to find an NHS dentist!! So was quite interested in costs and this is what I found:

If you can't get free treatment or help with the cost then you pay 80% of the cost of the treatment up to a maximum, currently £384 (as at 1st April 2008).
Some examples :-
Basic examination
free
Extensive examination
free
Simple scale and polish
£10.08
Two small X-rays and one small filling from
£13.16
One large filling from
£17.56
Single simple tooth extraction
£6.28
Root filling front tooth
£36.96
A full precious metal crown from
£101.20
A full set of plastic dentures from
£138.76

Remember the total cost of your NHS treatment may be different from these examples because of the number, or types, of treatment involved.

Hope this helps

gerryw

Thanks again for all the replies. I'll check with my dentist on my next visit on Friday - that'll give me even more to look forward to !!!! :rolleyes: