Dentist Fraud

akkers

Maybe thats why so many people go to Bulgaria and Turkey for dental treatments.
And why do so many people just cant afford to go to a dentist for regular checkups?
The British dentist service is fine for the super-rich and those on benefits. But for those of us on middle-incomes, dental treatment is expensive and unaffordable. Govt reports in recent years show what a poor state the British peoples' teeth are.
The govt and the dentists can argue until the cows come home. The public are stuck in the middle being unable to afford dental care.

brook2jack

The average UK person spends less on dentistry per year than they do on socks. (Including patient contributions and government contributions the average spend per year per patient treated is £28 to £46 a year. The average household sock spend £137 astonishingly)

We spend more per week on alcohol and tobacco (£12.30) than our total spend on all health products/services (£7 ish) http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc203/index.html

As to how much NI goes to dentistry? About 36p a month

A dental check up depending where in the UK you are will range from around £8 to around £20 and the maximum you can pay from around £200 to around £330), but to spend that much every year you would have to have extremely unusual dental problems and habits.

As to Bulgaria etc , as the GDP in Bulgaria is a third to a quarter of the U.K. Locals there find dentistry expensive despite the costs of running a dental business there being much cheaper (dental registration £50 ish a year UK almost £1000, indemnity £200 a year , UK £4000 and rising, wages, property, taxes etc much much cheaper)

Finally the rising rate of decay in the UK may be more to do with the fact that eating sugar more than 3 times a day causes decay yet the average British child eats more than 7 times a day and the average UK citizen eats 95g of sugar a day that's 19 spoon full of sugar a day. As a nation we seem incapable of making the changes to our diet we know we should that would improve our overall health, not just dental.

akkers

I am a middle-income earner and I find it exteremely hard to pay for regular checkups and treatments alongside huge bills, motoring costs and children upkeep. Checkups on NHS are £19.70 around here.
And believe me, I have only 8 pairs of socks; these I have had for the last 10 years. And I dont drink or smoke.

brook2jack

It is everyone's right to prioritise spending as they see fit. Eg some may prioritise trips abroad to Dubai and South America and iPhone purchases and obviously this will have an effect on budgeting elsewhere.

Some may set their priorities differently but the cost of a dental check up is less than a twentieth of the cost of an iphone5 new two years ago.

welshdent

akkers I wonder if you are falling in to the trap of assessing others directly via your own experience? You say people can not afford regular check ups yet daily all the dentists I know have lists full of check ups with people that routinely attend on a 3 - 24 month basis, most of whom pay. My anecdotal experience does not tally with yours. Sure some people may opt for an extraction rather than a root filling and a crown, but individually, you do not need those regularly. Most people may need a few over a lifetime these days. We are still cheaper on the NHS for that procedure than abroad incidentally. I recently spent £600 on a service, new front tyres, breaks and disks. I have never spent that much on dentistry.

akkers

Yes, sure. You cannot generalise. But what are those national reports saying; that people are not going to dentists because of costs.
I actually know people who have been to Bulgaria to have treatments done that were just too expensive in the UK (I am talking about treatments costing hundreds or thousands of pounds). I also know people who go to Turkey for holidays and they fit in their filings or other dental work in the holiday. Ordinary treatment like check-ups, fillings etc are much cheaper in Turkey.
And I also know people at work and in my social circles who are just not going to dentist and allowing their teeth to deteriorate. Maybe they got their priorities wrong or that the prices are unaffordable.

Toothsmith

Going abroad for dental treatment has it's own problems. The GDC have produced a good guide about it here.

http://www.gdc-uk.org/newsandpublications/publications/publications/going%20abroad%20for%20your%20dental%20care.pdf

But people do go. And a percentage will get caught out by the complications that can arise and end up paying hundreds or thousands of pounds more than they would have done in the first place. But - that's people for you.

What is also true is that in 'studies' many people who are scared of the dentist, to save face, say 'Can't afford it' rather than 'scared'.

brook2jack

akkers wrote: »

I actually know people who have been to Bulgaria to have treatments done that were just too expensive in the UK (I am talking about treatments costing hundreds or thousands of pounds). I also know people who go to Turkey for holidays and they fit in their filings or other dental work in the holiday. Ordinary treatment like check-ups, fillings etc are much cheaper in Turkey.
And I also know people at work and in my social circles who are just not going to dentist and allowing their teeth to deteriorate. Maybe they got their priorities wrong or that the prices are unaffordable.

So a NHS dental,check,up costs between £9 ish and £20 ish and private check ups are £25 to £45 on average. A NHS course of treatment including fillings will range in price from £18 to £50 ish.

If someone is going on holiday abroad and chooses to have checkup or fillings there it is not because they cannot afford them in the UK, after all they have afforded a holiday costing at least a few hundred pounds. The savings will be probably less than a round of drinks. It is more a question of priorities in spending.

Extensive courses of treatment costing thousands of pounds are rare things. I have been a dentist for a few decades , the last few years private, and I have never done a treatment plan of thousands of pounds. Specialists who do implants may easily do this sort of treatment but that will be for treatment that will take months to complete and multiple visits, in other words the savings in treatment costs are more than likely to be eaten up by the multiple travelling, hotel and time off work costs. There are many pitfalls in trying to complete this sort of treatment plan long distance.

As said before the average spend, per person treated, per year in the UK on the NHS is between £28 and £46 a year. That's less than the average person spends on lottery tickets.

If you can afford to travel and stay in Bulgaria or Turkey you can certainly afford NHS dentistry and probably most private dental membership schemes which vary from around £11 to £45 a month but you may chose not to prioritise your dental health when assigning your spending.

baby_lemonade

Just talking generally here, not getting at you OP, but people often say they can't afford to pay healthcare costs yet they can afford Sky at £40 per month, and they can afford to go on their holidays to Greece, etc

It's a question of prioritising.

The NHS has got us all into the mindset that we can and should get all of our healthcare for free.

akkers

Actually I cant afford Sky anymore; keeps going up.

I had a friend who was going to get teeth done (are they called implants). He was quoted £14,000 here and £6,000 in Bulgaria. No brainer, IMO.

But going back to the original post of fraud, why did the govt not crack down on nefarious practices back in the 90s and 2000s? I am talking about signing blank NHS forms and refusal to issue itemised receipts.