Dental Insurance that is reasonably priced?

freeyaeco

Yes except in my system no insurance company, no third party. Just the practice and the patient. My system going through a third party would cost a lot you are right. From the numbers I did, I'd say around 40£/month/person (a bit more than a Band C denplan) enables you to treat everyone right, and for everything. It's much more complicated than it seems, necessitates a bit of investment to get everything started.

99.8 to 99.9% isn't that much of a difference, but going from 98 to 93 is : it's going from 1/50 patients having a problem to 1/14 which is quite a difference either you want it or not. Tell a patient he has a 1/50 chance of failure if done right away and 1/14 chance if he waits 3-6 months, see the reaction. Test it really. Excellency is gaining the small % of successful cases.

To the non-dentists out there, do you feel a 40£/month premium would be reasonable for full coverage (even ortho and implants)? In France that would be considered really low price, I don't know what people would think here though.

ManofLeisure_2

Freeyaeco : £40 a month as an 'all inclusive' package sounds pretty good to me. However, as others have stated, many people would struggle to find such an amount, and not because they have expensive mobile phones or sky packages.

BucksLady : Sounds like we've visited the same dentist - but at least you didn't lose a tooth in the process

justme111

freeyaeco wrote: »

Yes except in my system no insurance company, no third party. Just the practice and the patient. My system going through a third party would cost a lot you are right. From the numbers I did, I'd say around 40£/month/person (a bit more than a Band C denplan) enables you to treat everyone right, and for everything. It's much more complicated than it seems, necessitates a bit of investment to get everything started.

99.8 to 99.9% isn't that much of a difference, but going from 98 to 93 is : it's going from 1/50 patients having a problem to 1/14 which is quite a difference either you want it or not. Tell a patient he has a 1/50 chance of failure if done right away and 1/14 chance if he waits 3-6 months, see the reaction. Test it really. Excellency is gaining the small % of successful cases.

To the non-dentists out there, do you feel a 40£/month premium would be reasonable for full coverage (even ortho and implants)? In France that would be considered really low price, I don't know what people would think here though.

But we are not talking about excellence now . We been talking about it being affordable or not.
Riplyuk , if you have just a few fillings and only one root canal treatment done my guess would be you will not need a lot of money to mantain your teeth.
Dentists often not tell what can be done to save the tooth to avoid people going on a crusade "I am entitled to it on the NHS." I know not good. But before you judge them - remember it is dentist's livelyhood at stake . Would you yourself be holier than though if you knew it may cost you.your job for the whole remaining life ..

justme111

ManofLeisure wrote: »

Freeyaeco : £40 a month as an 'all inclusive' package sounds pretty good to me. However, as others have stated, many people would struggle to find such an amount, and not because they have expensive mobile phones or sky packages.

BucksLady : Sounds like we've visited the same dentist - but at least you didn't lose a tooth in the process

Anything can be unaffordable to many people. If someone lives on £100 a week than sadly I don't see them affording much beyond bare minimum. They would have to rely on the NHS with all its limitations. Mind , if they wanted it badly enough they still could scrimp and save to have private treatment done but I accept they would have to prioritise their teeth far higher than average one of us does.

BucksLady

ManofLeisure... If I had stayed any longer, I might have:)

freeyaeco... £40 a month sounds ok for those with dental health issues, but for people like myself I don't think it would be a realistic option. I would be inclined to invest that money and so if a problem arose the money would be available. However, the NHS serves me well at present because my needs aren't great.

freeyaeco

Thanks for your replies, I was guessing as much. I'm OK getting only those who have quite some problems at first. The thing is for a mutual/insurance to work there needs to be solidarity, the healthy pay for the sick. I find you Britons have a very peculiar way of looking at health insurance (or maybe it's us French), you don't seem to see the danger of not having insurance, because I guess you tell yourselves that in the end you always have the NHS, because you are 'entitled' to it. Some of you even think that since you pay, you should go there to make it worth it. Maybe you guys are right. I don't know.

I'll try running it through businesses so the employer pays a part and the employee another part.

For new patients not on the plan I'll do a 50% or 40% off any work needed if they sign up. We'll see how it goes.

Justme : maybe we are idealists in France, but we believe everyone should be entitled to excellency when it comes to health. Hard to put a fair and honest system in place but I guess in the end it's possible.

Torry_Quine

BucksLady wrote: »

ManofLeisure... If I had stayed any longer, I might have:)

freeyaeco... £40 a month sounds ok for those with dental health issues, but for people like myself I don't think it would be a realistic option. I would be inclined to invest that money and so if a problem arose the money would be available. However, the NHS serves me well at present because my needs aren't great.

I could never justify £40 per month for my dental needs, that's much more than I ever need to spend. If you look after your teeth and go to a dentist regularly then you shouldn't ever need much done.

freeyaeco

Torry_Quine wrote: »

I could never justify £40 per month for my dental needs, that's much more than I ever need to spend. If you look after your teeth and go to a dentist regularly then you shouldn't ever need much done.

True, problem is most people don't have a perfect technique in brushing and flossing, and will eventually need work done, get wisdom teeth extracted surgically, others will have accidents, get into fights, get cancer etc... And the healthy need to pay for the sick, until it's their turn. The system is based on solidarity, not individualism. That's the spirit in a mutual.

Torry_Quine

freeyaeco wrote: »

True, problem is most people don't have a perfect technique in brushing and flossing, and will eventually need work done, others will have accidents, get into fights, get cancer etc... And the healthy need to pay for the sick, until it's their turn.

My technique is far from perfect. I have needed work but not that much to justify such a high cost. When I have needed treatment the NHS has been excellent and the most I ever spent was £179 for a root canal and crown which was over 3 years ago and the last thing I needed.

freeyaeco

I understand,
What people don't understand, is any treatment has a life span and the better the quality the longer the lifespan. Other thing is you can only re-treat a tooth so many times before it needs be extracted. You have a tooth capital if you will, from what I see NHS quality is quite poor (on average, you possibly have exceptions, but not so much). Even if you feel a root canal is a root canal, and anyone of them are the same, I can assure you that that is a really false statement.

Basically any tooth having a filling, will eventually need extraction, the better the treatment, the later that happens, the goal being for it not to happen before the patient dies.