Dental Work Abroad

vfm

I have read this thread with interest. I look after my teeth, have never smoked (because I think it ruins them), did up until recently have regular checkups in order to stay as an NHS patients and am regularly commented on how lovely my teeth are (I'm very lucky at 47 to still have good teeth).

I have been lucky not to have needed any work carried out to my teeth for at least 5 years. However a few months ago I got a letter from my dentist saying that as from November he was going private and that if I wanted to stay with him I would need to pay a monthly fee (some sort of insurance plan). The fee worked out at approximately £240 per year. As I said I have not had any work carried out for at least 5 years and all I've spent on dentistry is the checkup charges (no need even for a clean and polish).

I have not joined the insurance scheme as I cannot afford to pay £240 per year, and I also think that dentist are taking advantage of the current situation and being greedy.

I feel that more people should say NO to going private and also the Government should not allow dentist to pick and choose whom they treat on the NHS (mine says he will still treat children). I feel the dentist wants to make the money from private patients, whilst still having the guaranteed income from the NHS.

As I can't get another NHS dentist in my area I will now sadly only go for treatment when I feel it is necessary. I would welcome an influx of Polish dentist into the NHS positions that British dentists feel reluctant to fill

Steve_xx

Here, here VFM...........well said.

Toothsmith

Steve_xx wrote:

Yes it may cost what it costs, but actually, it costs too much for the average person to afford. The poster did not say that she wanted her treatment to cost a fiver, on the other hand, she obviously doesn't want to have a mortgage in place for her dental requirements.This may be a hard concept for a well paid dentist to grasp. That's why somebody on here has started a thread in order to obtain advice as to where in the world that dental treatment can be obtained at a reasonable cost.

This thread was started by somebody who was going to be travelling arond the world, and wanted to 'pop in' somewhere to get COSMETIC dental work.

Not 'necessary' dental work.

You do not just get £4000 worth of dental treatment like a plasma TV.

Cosmetic dental work is a major step, as you are taking something that is essentially healthy and messing about with it.

It will need far more maintenance than the healthy teeth he has at the moment. Has he thought about where that will happen? Has he thought about what would happen if in the next country on his travels, something went wrong?

My advice to him would be to forget about the treatment, and go round the world with the healthy teeth he has, then get something done when he gets home.

Returning to the cost of dental work in this country.

Let us take the case of sazzlewhit.

A member of the public has (Through reasons as yet unknown) been given a price of £1600 to fix her teeth. That is because in this country, to comply with all the relavant regulations of employment, taxation, and safe practice the time it will take to provide that treatment will cost £1600.

There is a cheaper option, that will involve some teeth being extracted. This is obviously not the best option, but it will sort out the patients problems, and return her to 'health'

You, Steve are the Secretary of State for Health.

What would you do?

Toothsmith

vfm wrote:

I feel that more people should say NO to going private and also the Government should not allow dentist to pick and choose whom they treat on the NHS (mine says he will still treat children). I feel the dentist wants to make the money from private patients, whilst still having the guaranteed income from the NHS.

As I can't get another NHS dentist in my area I will now sadly only go for treatment when I feel it is necessary. I would welcome an influx of Polish dentist into the NHS positions that British dentists feel reluctant to fill

Good news vfm,

Dentists are being told that they can't pick and choose. And as a result, an unprecedented amount of children are now being seen privately too. I'm sure your dentist (Were you to stay) will soon be sending out a letter telling you that he will have to privatise children.

Since Nov 1998, up until April 1st this year, I saw adults privately, but as these adults were just ordinary working people, just like you and I, I kept their children on the NHS, whilst providing a level of care that was beyond the funding I was getting. (As I had control over the funding of the adult side, I could 'cross-subsidise' the kids a bit.)

The 'new contract' of April 1st changed all that.

To be honest, my PCT did offer me a contract that would allow me to see just kids on the NHS, but it was very much in the large print that this may well not continue, and many other dentists up and down the country were refused this option. It was either see everybody on the NHS or see nobody! Bit of a no-brainer really!

In the town where I work, a practice was being opened to 'cater' for NHS. A 4 surgery place staffed largely by foreign dentists. I took the decision to take kids out of the NHS whilst this surgery still had places for them, rather than hang on to them until I was forced.

As to the bit about 'saying NO to going private'. Fortunately, from my point of view, not everyone is like you and Steve.

Some people actually DO bother to find out what's going on, and direct the blame where it is due.

There are also some people who value good care and service, and know what good dentistry is all about.

Of course, every single one of my patients would love it if I could do it a bit cheaper, and would think it fantastic if I could do what I do on the NHS. But they realise that the exchequer is not a bottomless pit, and bombs, MPs pensions and unworkable computer projects are far more important to the country than decent healthcare.

I lost very few children when I privatised them.

Several of the ones I did loose have since returned. The foreign dentists keep changing - This is because many of them too have been well trained, and seem to be objecting to what they are being asked to do on the NHS. They realize the reality is not the same as the glossy presentation the DoH gave at that hotel in Warsaw, and have gone home again, or, now they have a permit, moved to the private sector in this country.

I wold say vfm, that £240 a year to cover your teeth is very good value for money. Prehaps when you experience the sort of dentistry that the NHS is now promoting, you too may well agree.

Steve_xx

Toothsmith wrote:

This thread was started by somebody who was going to be travelling arond the world, and wanted to 'pop in' somewhere to get COSMETIC dental work.

Not 'necessary' dental work.

You do not just get £4000 worth of dental treatment like a plasma TV.

Cosmetic dental work is a major step, as you are taking something that is essentially healthy and messing about with it.

It will need far more maintenance than the healthy teeth he has at the moment. Has he thought about where that will happen? Has he thought about what would happen if in the next country on his travels, something went wrong?

My advice to him would be to forget about the treatment, and go round the world with the healthy teeth he has, then get something done when he gets home.

Returning to the cost of dental work in this country.

Let us take the case of sazzlewhit.

A member of the public has (Through reasons as yet unknown) been given a price of £1600 to fix her teeth. That is because in this country, to comply with all the relavant regulations of employment, taxation, and safe practice the time it will take to provide that treatment will cost £1600.

There is a cheaper option, that will involve some teeth being extracted. This is obviously not the best option, but it will sort out the patients problems, and return her to 'health'

You, Steve are the Secretary of State for Health.

What would you do?

The lady (sazzlewhit) has a problem in that she cannot afford dental health at £1610. You, have implied that the great British taxpayer should stump up the difference between the fiver you say that she thinks (though you don't know what she thinks) she ought to pay for her work. So then, there is to be no consideration on your part that the £1610 tariff might be rather too expensive in the first place and that in considering this to be the case you might reduce your charges in order that dentistry is affordable to the masses.

The poster VFM has indicated that their dentist has suddenly cottoned on to the fact that in forcing his/her patients to subscribe to an insurance scheme that it will provide him/her with the real possibility of a huge increase in income since he/she will be free to set his tariff and the patient will be forced to claim on their policy. The result will be that this patient has decided that he/she will not subscribe to the scheme and therefore will now have to find another dentist. I think it is scandalous.

I reiterate that this industry needs a healthy dose of competition. I think that as Sec of State that I will have the Office of Fair Trading take a look at dental tariffs and I would expect that the result will be that the industry will be regulated and that there will be suitable price caps placed on a basket of treatments.

The current situation in the UK dictates that the majority of people can no longer afford dentistry. Dentists are increasingly forcing people to take a service on a private only basis and they are relentlessly jacking up their tariffs due to the fact that tariffs are not regulated in any way. The end result of this may well be empty waiting rooms at the dental surgery. Should this end up being the case then the laws of supply and demand will ensue and dentists will find that they need to reduce their tariffs accordingly and so join the real world.

Even better for the public would be the emergence of a Specsavers of dentistry and I don't see why this could not be a possibility in the UK.

Doublespresso

Toothsmith wrote:

If all you expect of dentistry is teeth pulling, check ups and cleans, then you wouldn't spend very much in this country anyway.

But in this country, you are more likely to find dentists who aren't so keen to mutilate you.

This is an outrageous statement! To imply that dentists abroad are "more keen to mutilate you"!

I'm sorry to say, Toothsmith, you are trying to defend the indefensible. Whilst undoubtedly dentists here have much higher overheads than those in other countries (and therefore are more expensive) but to make such wholesale statements about the quality of dentistry in other countries is nonsense.

Besides your argument about people not taking care of their teeth is not relevant at all to this discussion.

A good dose of competition never harmed any industry and you shouldn't be afraid of it, IF, as you state, you actually do provide better value for money.

Toothsmith

1. Dentists going private INCREASE their fees, but DECREASE the number of patient they look after in order to focus on quality of care. Net effect is that dentist income remains the same (Backed by inland revenue figures)

2. OFT looked into private dentistry 3 years ago (OFT website) Most of the few recommendations they made have already been implemented.

3. Specsavers DID set up a small scale pilot of NHS dental practices about 8 years ago. They soon moved on when they found the NHS 'a totally unworkable system' More recently, Boots set up dental clinics on a private model (charging prices similar to independent dental practices). Last year they sold these practices to Vision Express, who continue to try and run them. They struggle though due to turnover of staff. dentistry is a very intimate service, and people like to see the same dentist each time. In big corporations, staff turnover is too high to make people feel at ease.

There is a big player in the NHS market. Intergrated Dental holdings WEBSITE these are the people who opened the NHS practice in my town a few months ago. It is the best recruiting tool for my practice ever!!!

One thing you didn't mention if you were Secretary of State was opening your own Government practices and driving costs down that way.

This too has been tried, about 7 years ago with the infamous 'access centres'

Quite a few of these were set up at about £1m a shot. strangely enough, it seemed to be Labour marginal constituancies that got them.

All they ever really did was to fix emergencies, and then tell people to find a 'real' dentist. Their cost-per-patient-VISIT worked out at about £300!!!!!!! The average high street NHS practice was working on an average cost to the taxpayer of £32 per COURSE OF TREATMENT!

Back in the late 80's when I qualified, the vast majority of dentistry was carried out on the NHS. It wasn't perfect, but it worked well.

If the funding level of that time had kept pace with rising costs, there would be no shortage today, as nobody would have broken ranks and just gone private for the sake of it. It would have been commercial suicide.

Meddling politicians, chipping away at the budgets made it impossible to continue to provide NHS care.

Dentists were always at the fringes of the NHS. We own our own practices and are financially responsible for them. If the income does not meet the expenditure then something has to change. That change was the move to private care (My theory is that this is exactly what the Government want - they CAN'T be soooo stupid to have let this come about by accident).

Now that the private genie is out of the bottle, and dentists have the taste for providing quality care free from Government beurocracy, no amount of money is going to get it back again.

I would not go back to providing NHS care if they tripled the fees overnight.

I would be perfectly willing to provide care for anybody in my practice. If the NHS would like me to see somebody for treatment that is fine, but they would get the same billl that I would have given to the patient, and I would expect it to be paid in full prior to commencing the treatment on that patient.


EDIT - At the OFT website, type dentistry into the search box

Toothsmith

Doublespresso wrote:

This is an outrageous statement! To imply that dentists abroad are "more keen to mutilate you"!

Taking teeth out that could be saved is, in my book, mutilation.

Toothsmith

Doublespresso wrote:

A good dose of competition never harmed any industry and you shouldn't be afraid of it, IF, as you state, you actually do provide better value for money.

I have an NHS practice with space less than 3 miles away from me.

I bet I get more patients from them than they get from me!

pwni

Toothsmith wrote:

This thread was started by somebody who was going to be travelling arond the world, and wanted to 'pop in' somewhere to get COSMETIC dental work.

Not 'necessary' dental work.

You do not just get £4000 worth of dental treatment like a plasma TV.

Cosmetic dental work is a major step, as you are taking something that is essentially healthy and messing about with it.

It will need far more maintenance than the healthy teeth he has at the moment. Has he thought about where that will happen? Has he thought about what would happen if in the next country on his travels, something went wrong?

My advice to him would be to forget about the treatment, and go round the world with the healthy teeth he has, then get something done when he gets home.

Oh dear. Some very rash generalisations right down this thread. I have no intention of jumping into this argument - you have made your position more than clear, equally clear is your disdain for those who don't concur with that position. I posted the original question in the hope that the good peeps on here might have some personal experience of dental work abroad, not get into a fight about the pros and cons. That said, it has all been useful in starting to build the "big picture" about what I am intending to do, and for that I thank you. :beer:

If you're suggesting that I am automatically going to be mutilated/receive substandard treatment anywhere in the world other than Britain then that is ludicrous. I am well aware of the minefield I am stepping over by doing this but am trying to establish here exactly where the mines are likely to be and how to avoid them.

The prime consideration (over and above cost!) is quality of work. If I can't find a dentist on my travels who I have complete confidence in then I will certainly be waiting until my return.

Soooo..... back to my original question - has anyone any info about or experience of dental work abroad? Where/who was it and how do you feel about the result?

THANK YOU!