Root canal treatment cost on NHS etc

brook2jack

Yes the materials, training ,instruments alone would cost more than nhs fee by many times but he cannot say he will not do it on the nhs but will do it himself privately.

The madness is anyone who invests thousands of pounds in training and equipment to do something well would be better off burning £50 notes than seeing patients on the nhs as they would lose less money.

However if a dentist signs up to the nhs contract then they are constrained by that contract. If they wish to become a dental specialist then with a few rare exceptions where special contracts are available really they have to be wholly private.

justme111

Could it be that concepts of "needs" and "best optiion"get confused ?. By your reasoning if the dentist working on NHS can do implants they should do implants on NHS. Do you agree ? Could you direct me to the clause in a dental contract please which says that everything that the dentist can do has to be offered on NHS ?

brook2jack

Dental implants are not and never have been on GDS , they were never mentioned on the original sdr.

However root treatment is and doesn't differentiate between difficult and easy root treatment. All this may change with new dental contracts but for now it doesn't.

This is the reason many including TS and myself mostly withdrew from the NHS in 2006 because we couldn't see how we could financially afford to provide what NHS dentistry promises.

justme111

Well done , I am surprised the so many accepted it - well , I gues due to fear of losing the income to pay.for mortgage , school for kids , clubs for wives and toys for themselves. But then there were many that did not have practices to convert because they were working as associates. And ones who hoped it will not be that bad and they would be able to continue more or less the same as before , and those who wanted to continue for ideological noble reasons I do not see why are you so categorical about the dentist in question being in the wrong though if it is based only on.the fact that rct used to be in SDR. What about dentures with precision attachments ? Flexible dentures ? Posterior composites ?
Don't you think the sooner the public will realise they can not all always get top quality dental treatment subsidised by NHS the more accepting they.would be to considere private options ?
To the op - whether the original dentist was in breach of any regulations or not is not that relevant. He did not want to do that re- rct on the nhs. If you bully him into doing it will you be happy to have a dentist who you do not trust ? Would you be happy in having a job done by someone who did not want to do it in the first place ?

brook2jack

Posterior composites and precision attachments were never in the sdr and neither were flexible dentures.

There is no problem offering privately what cannot be offered on the nhs that is what the private box on the fp17dc is for. However I doubt anyone offering private root treatment themselves (rather than referring legitimately to a specialist) would enter that on a fp17dc.

There are many cases where a dentist offering nhs treatment will lose money ... Treatment of neglected mouths, treatment of periodontal disease etc but this does not mean you can refuse to do the treatment.

I think it is foolish to invest in equipment and training for root treatment specialisation unless you are in purely or mostly private practice as you cannot afford to treat in this way on the nhs. I know welsh dent does at the moment but I'm sure he will tell you how much the practice loses on each treatment and what his long term plans are.

welshdent

At the risk of annoying the general public I plan on being private long term and use the NHS as a means of accessing a hell of a lot of different treatments to gain experience. The system we have is terrible and I know of no other developed country like it. We are IMHO brainwashed by brand NHS and as a consequence miss out on some amazing materials and techniques that are frankly way beyond affordability to average NHS practitioners. A patient of mine fell over in the USA. They had an extraction and immediate denture made with a bone preserving matrix. They paid 3000 dollars. For the same treatment I'd be paid £120. The bone treatment alone costs more than that. Its not so much a case of what we earn which is hmg and the press's fave line of attack! Its that the fees are so woeful we simply can not fund the better treatments or we would go bust within a week. Its a politically sensitive area but sadly its the public that pays the price and they don't even realise it. I read a lot of American dental message boards and the standard of work some of those dentists do is unbelievable.

justme111

brook2jack wrote: »

Posterior composites and precision attachments were never in the sdr and neither were flexible dentures.

There is no problem offering privately what cannot be offered on the nhs that is what the private box on the fp17dc is for. However I doubt anyone offering private root treatment themselves (rather than referring legitimately to a specialist) would enter that on a fp17dc.

There are many cases where a dentist offering nhs treatment will lose money ... Treatment of neglected mouths, treatment of periodontal disease etc but this does not mean you can refuse to do the treatment.

I think it is foolish to invest in equipment and training for root treatment specialisation unless you are in purely or mostly private practice as you cannot afford to treat in this way on the nhs. I know welsh dent does at the moment but I'm sure he will tell you how much the practice loses on each treatment and what his long term plans are.

Re posterior composites - that's exactly what I am about , they were mot on sfr but with a change of a contract one can not refuse to do them on a basis that they were not allowed because now nothing says they are not ! So really "because it used to be on sdr" is not a reason in my eyes , and to the best of my knowledge there is no clause in contract which says that out of all treatment options "the best " or "most expensive " has to be chosen. Now , it matters what it is in eyes of insurers and whether someone would risk to test it .. I think if one did get PgDip
in endo , bought all the gizmos for it , watched his wording when talking to patient (not saying "you need rct but can not do it on NHS " but "pain that you have can be sorted either by extraction or rct , unfortunately as rct is AAE grade 3 I would not do it on the nhs") , kept exemplary notes - I don't see what either doh or gdc culd pick up on.

Yes the profession is being dumbed down severely as politics do not want two tier system they reduce it to the lowest common denominator ..

gener8or

I recently had root canal work, and my dentist can do it. But I knew he didn't want to do it. Anyway he offered a better chance to save the tooth by his mate at £400 or he could do it within the constraints of the NHS.
He did it and made a loss, apparently the drills cost more than the 40 odd pounds I spent, as he said to me you win some and you lose some but its all good experience.

mingualez

Thank-you all very much for the advice!!

Owain_Moneysaver

welshdent wrote: »

A patient of mine fell over in the USA. They had an extraction and immediate denture made with a bone preserving matrix. They paid 3000 dollars. For the same treatment I'd be paid £120. ...I read a lot of American dental message boards and the standard of work some of those dentists do is unbelievable.

American dentistry may be very nice if you can afford it.

Lots of Americans can't.

85 million Americans lack dental coverage

50 percent of uninsured Americans skipped necessary dental care visits due to financial burdens, one out of every five children under the age of 18 goes without dental care every year, less than 20 percent of Americans age 75 and older have any form of private dental insurance.

Percent of adults ages 20-64 years with untreated dental caries: 23.7%

The NHS is far from perfect but at least it's there, even if dental treatment isn't free at the point of use.

I'm getting a root canal molar done next week, NHS Scotland dentist said it would be £500 private or £100 on NHS. (This includes X-ray and other minor items.)