NHS Dental costs - have I been charged correctly?

Annonay

welshdent wrote: »

Also unlike most average students they spend almost all the year in Uni not half

When I went to Uni, we had 3 semesters each lasting 10 weeks each.

That's 22 weeks (or about 40%) when you are not at university.

The Dental School was no different. I know, we lived in halls in the first year and we were all kicked out as soon as Uni was out. (so we couldn't claim hosuing benefit that year, but when we went into the private sector we could... and did)

welshdent

I can categorically promise you that I was VERY different to the other non medical students. I had 2 weeks holiday at christmas and easter then 4 for the summer. Outside that it was clinics or lectures for 4 full and 1 half day a week where the half day was in line with other unis - wednesday. I had no maintenance grants at all

brook2jack

[text removed by MSE Forum Team] Only first year was thirty weeks. After that the next four years always have been 45 weeks, same for medics and vets, otherwise impossible to do the work.

BDS in the UK has always been five years not seven. Very very rarely in the dim and distant past an arts student could get in to dentistry by doing an additional year so for them it would have been a six year course but that would be 40 years ago.

You must have gone to uni a fair while ago as no full time UK student has been able to claim any benefit for 27 years. So any dentist who benefited from that system would have qualified over thirty years ago!!!

Annonay

brook2jack wrote: »

How many dental students did you know? Dental schools run on a fourty five week academic year (always have), unlike the thirty weeks of other courses (except vets and medics) . Full time Students have not been able to claim benefits for 27 years.

They are expected to do electives in many of the remaining weeks, often in clinics providing nhs access.

Even when I graduated many years ago most dental students were in debt because the long academic year meant they couldn't work during the holidays .

Your mates are obviously very unusual because until 1996 the vast majority of dentistry provided in the UK ( 86%) was nhs. They are doubly unusual in as much as figures from the inland revenue show mostly private dentists earn 5% more the mostly nhs dentists. The charges to patients are more but the overheads in private practice are alot more.

Dentistry students today have gained a place on the most competitive course other than veterinary medicine. Not only do they need high academic grades they also need very high scores in additional tests (ukcat) , do outstandingly well in interview and have outstanding personal statements. I have to counsel prospective applicants if they haven't started to get an impressive cv at 15 they've probably left it too late.

Fees for university and loss of maintenance grant have been with us for some time now and dental student debt has been a factor for many years.

As you will know from your friends funding postgraduate training is hideously expensive. expensive. To gain qualifications in implantologist, get the required experience and to set up the kit in an existing practice cost one local practitioner £250,000.

I think you've worked out when I was at University, (how many under 30 year olds have RCT?) so you can work out just how much private dentists did earn back then

I knew 3 dental students in my year really well (and those are the 3 I still know) but obviously I knew of many more when I was at Uni. IIRC, Dental Students studied for a year or two more than Medics (another large faculty at my Uni) where I knew quite a few of them too.
Apart from the odd week they did for their on the job training (I can't remember what they called it but it was when they worked on the wards etc) they did the same 30 week year as the rest of us.
(You always knew when they were on the wards, some of which was within the 30 weeks as it was the only time you ever saw a student go to Uni all suited and booted - apart from the graduation ceremony)

brook2jack

Again you are wrong. Dentistry has been a five year course in the UK with the exception quoted above. Ditto the forty five week term. Ditto dental students are trained in a dental hospital, they are there every day , they treat patients from the second year onwards, always have. They do not do the "odd week". They do alot of their course in general hospitals again not the odd week. They do electives in clinics often outreach in places far distant from the university. Always have.

Certainly anyone who qualified in the last thirty years did not enjoy the student lifestyle you seem to remember. Certainly your mates will have been enormously unusual in practicing privately as until 1996 the overwhelming majority of dentists in the UK practiced solely on the nhs.

As these mates and their colleagues will be ending their working lives about now it is rather unfair to base your assumptions about dentists on them rather than those who have qualified since in the intervening 30 years.

Annonay

brook2jack wrote: »

Rubbish. Only first year was thirty weeks. After that the next four years always have been 45 weeks, same for medics and vets, otherwise impossible to do the work.

BDS in the UK has always been five years not seven. Very very rarely in the dim and distant past an arts student could get in to dentistry by doing an additional year so for them it would have been a six year course but that would be 40 years ago.

You must have gone to uni a fair while ago as no full time UK student has been able to claim any benefit for 27 years. So any dentist who benefited from that system would have qualified over thirty years ago!!!

So we didn't have dentists 30 years ago???

Well my mates spent an addition 4 years after I left Uni and started earning money before they could start ... but they soon overtook my lifetimes earnings.

brook2jack

Thirty years ago in the UK dental training did not take place as you remember. It has never been a seven year course only five.

A dentist could get a job as a house officer in a dental hospital and continue studying. They earn a small wage and the post lasts a year and is often the first step to specialisation.

If a dentist decided they wanted to specialise they could spend the next five to seven years (orthodontics) or twelve years (oral surgery) in teaching hospital posts but again these are jobs and not that well paid and not part of normal degree.

Unfortunately your recollection bears no resemblance to UK dental training that I am aware of and certainly bears no resemblance to training in the last thirty years.

This year 141 UK dental students will qualify with no training place available for them. If they do not do that training within eighteen months of qualifying they will never be able to work in the nhs . This situation affected fifty students last year and at this rate will be even worse next year.

londondent

I am going to assume that I'm probably the most recently qualified dentist on this forum, I can confirm our holidays are terrible.
After the first year, you get six weeks holiday in the second year, then 3-4 weeks in summer after that. Easter holiday was 4 days in the last couple of years.

Anyway I digress.

Annonay - the band 4 charge (17.50) is correct and this is exactly how I would charge in my practice. Let me explain.

After your initial course of treatment when you had the filling done, the dentist would close the treatment plan.
any emergency appointments after this (especially with another dentist) will be counted as a new course if treatment and attract a new charge of £17.50.

Also to clarify the charge for prescriptions: until November 2012, a prescription only course of treatment ( that's a dentist to have a quick look, diagnose, and write a prescription) carried no charge to the patient. the practice would be reimbursed with a very small fee to cover the time.
After nov 2012, the PCT/ DOH removed this item from our contract/computer systems. This means that we have no choice but to charge a band 4 £17.50, in order to record the course of treatment.

You should not have to pay a second band 2 charge if your first appointment for the root canal is within 2 months of your last appointment with the original dentist.

I hope this clears things up.

Annonay

Thank you londondent, that is very useful.

To be clear, when I said it was a different dentist, it was the same surgery and it was the receptionist that made the appointment with another dentist who worked at that surgery because "my usual dentist was on holiday"

Anyway, as I said, I'm not too worried about the £17.50 charge as I did get to see a very nice dentist and I was given an x-ray.

To be honest, I'm not too worried about the secong £48 charge either, but didn't think it was right and you are not the first to confirm my suspicions that I shouldn't really have been charged this as it was within 2 months of the first course of treatment. (but I was afraid of something like you said that the dentist may have closed the original plan down)

If I shouldn't have paid the charge the second time, how is the best way to recover this?
[STRIKE]
Also, my final appointment for all this RCT may be later than 8 weeks from the original check-up when I paid the first £48. I need to check the actual dates, but would that affect things?
[/STRIKE]I re-read your post and you already said the effective dates are the last appointment with the previous treatment (the filling) and the first appointment for RCT. Ignoring the examination appointment, which we'll call emergency treatment, there was definitely less than 8 weeks between these dates.

Also, I see you also refer to a Band 4 charge. I've never heard of this before, it's not displayed at the dentist and this Department of Health poster (effective April 2012) does not mention it
http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/files/2012/04/2900096-Dental-Poster-v1_TAGGED.pdf

Is this 4th band (which appears to be the same price as the 1st band) a new thing? Or perhaps just something dentists informally call the cost for 'emergency treatment' even if no treatment is actually given.

brook2jack

Band four is an official term and charge. Unfortunately information about nhs dentistry is often very poor.