Denplan Dental Dilemma

smarttart

Hi Guys,

Bit of a saga but I'm hoping someone out there can help me, I've got a Denplan care policy which costs me £20 a month and last year I'd been complaining of pain in one of my back teeth and my dentist removed 3 really old amalgam fillings on that side and replaced them with white composite ones.
The tooth still wasn't right so when I went back for a check up (my original dentist had left and I had a new one) I mentioned it and he redid one of the fillings but it still wasn't right. So when I went back again (the new dentist had moved on and I had yet another new one) she redid the filling again, telling me it was a really deep filling and it still might not work. I went away and it still didn't settle down so after lots of tapping and poking she decided that I needed the tooth crowning which cost me £160, Denplan doesn't cover the new tooth I was paying for the technician - which is fair enough. I had to have two injections in my mouth as "she hadn't injected me quite far back enough" and I could still feel it when she started working on it. Then my bite wasn't quite right when she finished so she ground some of the new crown down plus ground down part of a perfectly healthy tooth (which somebody now tells me is due to the bad impressions/fitting of the new crown). She struggled to get a good impression as apparently I have a small mouth but it's very wide at the back and said if the technician wasn't happy I might have to have a mould specially made.
Anyway after living with it for a while it still wasn't right and I went back again this week, she took another x-ray and I now have an infection/abscess in the tooth next to the one that was crowned.
I can either have the tooth removed free of charge or - and here's my dilemma - have root canal surgery but even though it's covered on my particular Denplan cover, my dentist no longer cover root canal surgery as it was costing them too much, they can do the root canal surgery but it will cost me £450.
They did write and tell me they were going to stop covering root canal but I thought it was a general Denplan policy and not down to my particular dentist. I have rung around a couple of other dentist's in my area who do Denplan and they do cover root canal under the plan but of course won't take me on because it's ongoing work. I've been with my dentist for 30 years and been paying into Denplan for god knows how long and to say I'm cross would be an understatement. Barring check ups, the odd polish and all this recent work I have hardly had any work done. My original dentist used to joke with me as I only used to go to see him once a year and say I wasn't getting my monies worth.
So I need to know can I just give up Denplan and walk away from my present dentist and see if I can see if I can find myself an NHS dentist and get the work done on the NHS or is this also considered ongoing work and they won't touch me ?
Oh and I am now taking Amoxicillin, paracetamol and ibuprofen and 3 days later I am still in pain :mad:

Toothsmith

Everything that's gone on there just sounds to me like a bit of an unlucky sequence of events - so I don't think there has been any bad care going on.

Having said that, I'm not sure that dentists are allowed to change terms and conditions to a patient's Denplan contract unilaterally like that. (I'm a dentist with the vast majority of my patients on Denplan, and I don't think you are - but I'm not 100% certain)

If they find that something is 'costing them too much' then the way that Denplan would encourage the practice to do things is to sit down (With their advisors if they want) and look at their whole fee structure. It might just be that an extra £1 or maybe £2 on everybodies monthly payment, and all the sums work again.

A problem that dentists sometimes get into is that (despite what the media say about us sometimes) there are a lot of dentists out there with not much business sense! It is the dentist who sets the fee levels within the Denplan scheme, and them who tell Denplan how much to put up their particular fee rates each year.

If the practice doesn't have a good look at its costs each year (And particularly over the past couple of years with new cross-infection control protocols coming in, as well as the nightmare that is Care Quality Commission registration) the costs have increased quite a lot. If this isn't accurately passed on, then all of a sudden, the practice finds itself in a bit of difficulty.

So - Bottom line is, that I would ring up Denplan, and ask if the practice is allowed to do that. If they're not, then you will get your root filling inclusive of your monthly payment, but I'd expect Denplan to offer to sit down with the dentists and have a close look at why they felt they had to do that, which might well mean a bit of a fee increase in future.

vaio

somehow the thought of having root canal done by a dentist being forced to do by a customer complaint wouldn't fill(?) me with confidence especially given the history of the OP

smarttart

Hi there Toothsmith,

I'll definately agree with you there, I haven't been very lucky at all. I never had all these problems with my old dentist - why of why did he have to leave

I've already rung Denplan and apparently my dentist are well within their rights not to include root canal surgery if they write and tell me that's what they plan to do. I remember getting a letter ages ago telling me they were no longer including root canal and saying I could up my fees from £20 per month to I'm sure it was £35 per month (but don't quote me on that !) to cover any root canal treatment but as I said previously I thought that had come from Denplan and that was a change in their policy and not just something my dentist had decided to do. I remember thinking at the time that was one hell of hike especially when I only usually go in once a year for a check up and never have anything done ... yes I know, hindsight is a great thing.

So I still need to know if I can cancel my Denplan - as I don't see much point in having it - and get the root canal done on the NHS and continuing to stay with an NHS dentist or maybe at a later date getting a totally different dentist with Denplan that doesn't opt out of doing things because they cost too much.

I might also add that when I spoke to my brother-in-law last night he was telling me that his 16 year daughter (who is still at school) is with Denplan and the same dentist as me, she had a tooth extracted the other week and this same dentists charged him £30 for the extraction. I didn't think that you had to pay anyway if you were at school and certainly not if you're with Denplan - or perhaps they have started charging for that as well :rotfl:

brook2jack

A quick word of warning, if the tooth is a back one a nhs dentist may very well feel that root filling it is too difficult, if that is so they may very well suggest extraction or referring you for root treatment. The instruments for doing complicated root treatment such as a microscope (£15,000) etc , are very expensive, and the time on a back tooth, which can be two or more hours in total, means that the nhs fee a dentist recieves makes root treatment very uneconomical to do.


I personally know of no pct that has commisioned specialist endodontists so the referral will probably be private and on a back tooth will be £450 to £600 or more.

If the tooth is root treated then it will need crowning, as root filled teeth are very brittle. White crowns will not be offered on back teeth on the nhs so that will also be offered privately. If you are happy with a silver crown on the nhs it will cost from £177 to £204 England and Wales , less Scotland and NI. Privately £275 to £450 average ish for a white crown.

yes you can cancel denplan anytime, but do not think the nhs will necessarily offer you the treatment to save your tooth.

As to your brother in laws child.... if the dentist does not have a nhs contract then treatment will not be free as all treatment will have to be private the government only gives money for childrens treatment when the dentist has a nhs contract. Denplan run many schemes some of which just pay for check ups, xrays and hygiene and then you pay at a discounted rate for any treatment, some cover all treatment costs except lab bills. The former may be the scheme she is signed up to.

All denplan plans have exceptions they will not cover like lab fees, cosmetic treatment and implants. Many dentists have taken root treatment out because particularly with back teeth they are happier to refer to a specialist who will have a better success rate in what can be very challenging treatment. Even if the specialist is in the same practice the equipment , materials etc are so expensive particularly as many of the instruments have to be disposed of after each treatment, that it is a big hit for the dentist to take.

smarttart

Thanks for the advice guys,

I guess I wouldn't feel so hard done by if the other dentists that I rang hadn't told me that they would cover the root canal treatment under Denplan, it doesn't seem fair that some do and some don't, especially if as Toothsmith suggests I am now paying because they cannot get their business finances in order.

I suppose I should have looked around for a new dentist when my old one left, but I was one of these people with a great fear of going to the dentist and my old dentist was absolutely brilliant and put me at ease.
I am slowly losing faith with this practise since he left as I have had nothing but problems, not helped by the fact that when my dentist was looking at the x-ray of my tooth the other dentist in the practise came in, looked at the x-ray and I heard her say to my dentist "you should be working on that tooth there" Perhaps I should have made a dash for it there and then :think:

brook2jack

One last thought. The amount you pay per month on denplan depends on how much work you have had done in the past. With a root filling and two extra crowns you will probably be going up to the next band so when or if you change dentists you will probably pay more per month now.

greyteam1959

Denplan work on a 'band' system 1 to 8 I think.
My wife & I are in the 'top band' & in January 2012 the new fee will be £39.90 PER MONTH each............
However we do get a 15% family discount off that.

brook2jack

But the price if the band varies from dentist to dentist so a band 3 in dentist a won't necessarily cost the same as band 3 in dentist b.

VickyA_2

Can I just tag onto this please? My dentist is retiring and I'm taking this opportunity to move dentists to one closer to home. Do you HAVE to be in Denplan if the surgery "recommends" it? One friend "has" to be with Denplan to be a patient at another surgery, but my current dentist has said that it's not worth it for me (but I still put £20 a month away for dental checkups etc).

brook2jack

Most dentists will take pay as you go patients, but you might find denplan essentials or similar such as practice plan or isoplan, better. You pay less a month typically around £10 to £12 a month and it pays for two dental checks, two hygiene visits, x rays and dental insurance in a year. If you do need treatment you pay for it but at a reduced rate.