Dentists Overcharging Patients

pollypenny

My lovely dentist charges at the end of any treatment.

home_alone

At 71 nearly 72 I only have less than half of my teeth left and I am always have a scale and polish every 6 moths last time I was about to be charged £44 for a scale and polish done over 2 visits is this a case of the dentist milking it, no gum problems and the remainder of my teeth are is reasonable condition. I opted out of that particular visit.

Toothsmith

home_alone wrote: »

At 71 nearly 72 I only have less than half of my teeth left and I am always have a scale and polish every 6 moths last time I was about to be charged £44 for a scale and polish done over 2 visits is this a case of the dentist milking it, no gum problems and the remainder of my teeth are is reasonable condition. I opted out of that particular visit.

Impossible to say without seeing you.

It could be - or it could be that a problem is developing. Gum disease is a slow-progressing condition, and generally painless right up until teeth go wobbly and fall out!

If you don't trust the judgement of the dentist though, it'd be best to find a different one, rather than refusing treatment.

DFlights

Hm, sounds like I need a new dentist too then! But mainly because I have a very, very old, blunt, miscoloured crown that needs replacing. The main crux of my issue is that my gums have receded from this crown, baring what is now a quite visible portion of the remains of the original tooth. Because of this, my NHS dentist said that I'd need an operation to pull my gums down over the old tooth to hide it, therefor it would be a private operation costing around £1000.
Would this be right? I can't afford this any time soon and it's really bad for my self-confidence, as it makes my smile look awful, and it's an upper front tooth, so I can't just have it pulled out and leave a gap. It's really visible.
The old crown is also a dreadful mismatch in colour (I'm now 39 and it was put on when I was 13!), and very blunt.
I thought I could at least get the crown replaced on the NHS, but my dentist won't do it as he's insistent that it needs the gum operation doing.

brook2jack

NHS dentistry is there to secure dental fitness. Unfortunately replacing a crown because it doesn't match and some root shows is an aesthetic issue not health , so if the crown is sound it would have to be replaced privately as it is just an issue of looks.

If the gum has receeded as well then just replacing the crown to cover the root showing may leave you with one tooth that looks alot longer than the other. Hence the possible need for gum to cover the exposed root.