Teeth problem and no dentist

buddingdentist

For anyone in the Plymouth area without a dentist.... The Peninsula Medical School is starting up a dental school in September this year. Once the students there progress to treating patients themselves there should be opportunity for NHS treatment from them. It will develop more from around this time next year onwards so keep it in mind!

mioliere

Just thought I'd let everyone know that, apparently, NHS charges for dental treatment will go up by 3% in April! Let's hope it provides some more dentists for those who still can't get one!

Toothsmith

How will it do that?

mioliere

More money in the kitty I hope! I read on here yesterday - from buddingdentist - that there is a new dental school opening in Plymouth. We have one in my area that opened a couple of years ago.

Toothsmith

The charges going up just affect what people pay.

That money goes straight back to the PCTs who take it off the dentist's monthly NHS cheque.

Even if it did mean more money in the kitty, 3% is hardly going to solve all the ills of NHS dentistry.

Especially when cost increases in Dental practices has been running at between 5 and 7% each year for the last 10 years.

A 3 % increase is still a 2-4% CUT in real terms!

Let's_Bite_Back

Hi,

I understand your problem of not being able to find a NHS dentist - it is a common one.

Access to a NHS dentist is absolutely appalling for anyone living in the Rotherham area. One year after the introduction of the new dental contract all dentists in the area still have closed books.

I invite you to sign my online petition sent to the Prime Minister via the 10 Downing Street website. The process is quite simple using the link below:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Dentistry-NHS/

If you are interested yourself, perhaps you will know other people who have been affected by the problems and might also be interested in adding their names to my petition.

Thank you in advance for taking a little of your time to consider this matter.

rubberjonnie

I have recently undergone some pretty tough cosmetic dentistry as although always having soft teeth the crowns i had gave up the ghost. After 1 year of torture I have now been presented with the bill for in excess of £14,000 yes that right..!

This is more than 100% of the original quote and the dentist concerned is palming me off saying well the initial figure was only a quote.

Has anybody got any advice on how i should complain about this astro bill or any previous sucess stories.

Thanx
Pennyless in Oxford.

:mad: :mad: :mad:

rubberjonnie

I have recently undergone some pretty tough cosmetic dentistry as although always having soft teeth the crowns i had gave up the ghost. After 1 year of torture I have now been presented with the bill for in excess of £14,000 yes that right..!

This is more than 100% of the original quote and the dentist concerned is palming me off saying well the initial figure was only a quote.

Has anybody got any advice on how i should complain about this astro bill or any previous sucess stories.

Thanx
Pennyless in Oxford.

:mad: :mad: :mad:

Toothsmith

Often when I hear stories like this, it often boils down to a breakdown in communication between dentist and patient.

So - bearing in mind there will be the dentist's side to this story as well, I have the following comments.

1. I would NEVER let a patient be £14 000 in debt to me. It's simply too much money to trust to the patient's goodwill. Have you not paid anything as you went along? I generally get the patient to pay for treatment as we go along, that way, the patient gets a better idea of what each and every treatment item has cost.

2. Written 'quotes'.

You can never be sure that a treatment plan is going to go exactly to plan. In fact they very rarely do. It's a bit like renovating an old building - you peel off one layer to find loads more problems underneath. Occasionally, you have no choice but to do something different there and then (You can't let the patient walk out with a half finished job), and explain the differences in cost afterwards.

Over the time span of a year though, you really should have been kept up to date with the way the work was progressing and the extra costs that were adding up.

3. Complaining.

The first port of call should be the practice's own complaint proceedure. Write down your complaint, and back it up with the factual evidence you have. Do you have any written signed estimates or was it all verbal? If it was all verbal, then it could well be that the dentist is on a sticky wicket. He really should have everything down in writing if he is to mount a defence against your claims.

Don't dismiss the practice's own complaints proceedure. It won't automatically find in the dentist's favour.

Dentists rely on goodwill and recommendation from existing patients in order to get new patients. Having a patient out ther who is unhappy and telling other people will not do the practice any good in the long run.

If you can politly but assertively put your side of the story, then maybe some arrangement could be reached.

You don't say if you're happy with the work or not. If you are, I would suggest that the best person to care for it in the future would be the dentist who did it. It would be sad to loose the services of a dentist you like because of a dispute that might have been settled if you just talked openly and honestly between you.

I take it that you would have been happy to have paid the £7000 of the original estimate? Maybe if the dentist explained the difficulties and changes that had to be made to the treatment plan, you would go some way towards paying the extra, with him reducing the bill somewhat to account for the fact that he didn't keep you fully informed of the changes?

Certainly worth a try.

It might be worth putting down in the letter what you would consider to be a satisfactory outcome as well.

If you write a letter of complaint, then the dentist should acknowledge it's receipt within a few days, and give you a fuller response (and hopefully some offer of compromise) within a couple of weeks.

At the end of the letter should be a list of other organisations you can contact if you are not satisfied. One of those organisations should be the General Dental Council, who have recently started a private practice complaints handling proceedure. This would be the way I would recommend you to go if you get no satisfaction from the practice itself.

With a bit of give and take on both sides though, I doubt you will need to go much further.

sistersis

I had a bridge at the bottom right hand side and one of the teeth cracked.
My dentist took this out and has fitted me with dentures!!
I was so shocked as I didn't realise I was going to have thse.
Anyway I went home with them and found that I just could not have this grat big gum shie/plate thing in my mouth so went back and told hom.
He then made this smaller and am gong to pick it up this week.
My first question is do I actually need them as I have teeth at the top but he did say that these would eventually grow down to meet the gum at the bottom as there is nothing there to bite on!
How long would that take and if I could have inplants how much would this cost.
I have heard you can go abroad but what do other people feel about this.
I have 3 children so im not rich but would like to be confident when tallkkng and smiling
Any help would be gladly received