Dentists - different opinions on my teeth!

kit

I went to the dentist about a year ago and was told I needed 3 fillings. Didnt get them done as I couldnt afford it.

Went to see a different dentist today who told me I only needed 1 tiny filling. He was great and to save me going back he did it there and then.

Both are NHS dentists.

Morale of the story - dont always believe the first opinion you get! It saved me a fortune!!

Toothsmith

kit wrote:

I went to the dentist about a year ago and was told I needed 3 fillings. Didnt get them done as I couldnt afford it.

Went to see a different dentist today who told me I only needed 1 tiny filling. He was great and to save me going back he did it there and then.

Both are NHS dentists.

Morale of the story - dont always believe the first opinion you get! It saved me a fortune!!

People are often confused and sometimes upset by this sort of thing. The truth is though that if you'd seen 4 dentists you'd probably have got 4 opinions and all would be different!

No one way of doing things is right or wrong. It is just the opinion of that one person based on the information he has to hand at the time he is seeing you. It is much more likely to happen to a person seeing different dentists.

For example, if at the first visit you were seeing a dentist, you'd been a bit rushed, and not done such a good job at cleaning your teeth, or were a bit run down, and your gums were more inflamed than usual, the dentist may well have looked at your teeth, and seen one small hole, and a couple of stained areas on other teeth.

If he was the dentist you'd been to see last time you went to a dentist, he would also see whether you were a regular attender or not. If you weren't and your gums were a bit inflamed, and the toothbrushing wasn't A1, he may well have thought those two stained areas should just have little fillings put in them now, as they may well get a lot bigger before he saw you again.

When you went to dentist 2, thgings could well have changed. If the toothbrushing was better, and things looked healthier, he would have looked at those stained areas, and thought things would be fine. Especially if it was the same place you went to and he had access to his colleagues notes. He would have seen what was written about the areas, and decided that they were quite stable and could be left.

This time you were lucky. I see enough people who leave things and then instead of a small filling, it's a root filling and crown to save the tooth, or an extraction if they're not that bothered about having teeth.

As for saving yourself a fortune - on the NHS we're probably talking about £30 tops on the old NHS. Under our new contract one filling would cost £42.50, exactly the same as many fillings!!

Could it be your new dentist is just going to do the fillings at 6 monthly intervals? That would get him more points towards his NHS funding targets!!

coolio_2

I think with NHS dentists you should be reasonably safe. My friends go to a private dentist at the end of the road, every 6 months they spend about £200 on work supposedly urgently required. All 3 of my mates get the same speel everytime. I (with certainly no better teeth, possibly worse) rarely need anything done with my NHS dentist. It's taken them a while but they're starting to switch over.

Toothsmith

It's more to do with the dentist than the system they operate on.

The problem with dentistry is it takes such a long time to realise the difference between a 'good' treatment and a 'bad' one.

coolio_2

So a private dentist won't get anymore money from giving someone numerous crowns than if they just gave someone a checkup? Ah, I didn't realise that.

Toothsmith

Technically no, not if their pricing is right.

A check-up and crowns should be priced according to the time they take.

Check up - takes 15 mins

Multiple crowns - take a few hours.

It's often more profitable to be doing check ups all day than having to slow down to do crowns etc.

On the NHS, having to do fillings really slows down the process, and with the way the NHS prices are structured it does loose a dentist money to have to do them.

In the new world of NHS dentistry, a dentist is no longer paid a fee for individual items of treatment, but earns 'points' (UDAs) which go towards a 'target' he must achieve by the end of the year or his funding is cut.

A mouth that needs one filling earns 3 points. A mouth that needs several fillings earns.... wait for it ........ 3 points!!

If he has to do a crown, he gets 12 points, but has to pay the lab fee for making the crown out of his own pocket. If someone needs many crowns, he still only gets 12 points, and has to pay for many crowns to be made.

If the dentist does one of the fillings at one visit, and puts another off for 6 months, he will get 6 points though.

If he does no fillings, he gets one point for the check up, but has only spent a couple of minutes earning it. (And few people get more than a couple of minutes for a check up on the NHS).

So what's the fastest way to earn 'points' on the NHS?

Doing treatment or telling people they're OK?

Voyager2002

OK, so the new contract rewards a dentist for acting in ways that are not in a patient's best interest. Similarly, a private dentist may have a pricing structure that rewards her/him for providing either less or more treatment than the patient actually needs. So how can a patient find a trust-worthy dentist?

Toothsmith

The vast majority of dentists operating on any system will be trustworthy. Just like the vast majority of other jobs & professions.

The very WORST way to find a dentist is by trawling yellow pages when you have a toothache and looking for the cheapest dentist that can see you NOW.

The best way to find one is when you can take your time and really have a good look round and ask lots of questions