Dentist vent.

Sicard

Look, someone's got to pay for the dentists' Porsches haven't they.

ARandomMiser

Dentists have been creaming off the system for years. As a kid the dentist we used had given me a mouth full of fillings by the time I was 12 (he had pretty much managed to fill every side and back tooth). While oral hygiene was not as big an issue back in the 60's I don't ever remember having toothache as a kid. The same dentist was later reprimanded over doing unnecessary work.

So now I always ask for a written estimate and reassurance that any work is actually required (even though I have private dental).

Sicard

ARandomMiser wrote: »

Dentists have been creaming off the system for years. As a kid the dentist we used had given me a mouth full of fillings by the time I was 12 (he had pretty much managed to fill every side and back tooth). While oral hygiene was not as big an issue back in the 60's I don't ever remember having toothache as a kid. The same dentist was later reprimanded over doing unnecessary work.

So now I always ask for a written estimate and reassurance that any work is actually required (even though I have private dental).

Me too. I still remember his name, Mr Haldren. He was like Hitler to kids. At least the many fillings are still in place after 50+ years.

Fosterdog

ARandomMiser wrote: »

Dentists have been creaming off the system for years. As a kid the dentist we used had given me a mouth full of fillings by the time I was 12 (he had pretty much managed to fill every side and back tooth). While oral hygiene was not as big an issue back in the 60's I don't ever remember having toothache as a kid. The same dentist was later reprimanded over doing unnecessary work.

So now I always ask for a written estimate and reassurance that any work is actually required (even though I have private dental).

Actually thinking about it it was the same for me in the late 80s early 90s. I have a mouth full of fillings from childhood and left with a fear of dentists but I never really ate sweets or much sugar, always brushed my teeth and don't remember ever having toothache until my late teens when my wisdom teeth came through. It was the same for my brother.

As an adult I go once a year for a checkup, I really have to psych myself up to go as it causes extreme anxiety and panic attacks and the mist I've needed is a scale and polish, it has been almost 20 years since I stopped going to my childhood dentist and only needed treatment for an abscess once.

brook2jack

Dental decay is the number one reason for children in the U.K. To need admittance to a hospital and it has risen by almost 10% in the last year alone https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/27/england-hospital-treatment-children-severe-tooth-decay

In my area almost half of all children have had dental decay by the time they are 5 and half still have decay by the time they are 15. However this contrasts with the 1970s when 97% of all 15 year olds in the U.K. Had decay in their teeth. http://www.nature.com/bdj/journal/v219/n6/full/sj.bdj.2015.723.html

In other words it was the rare child in previous decades who didn't need a filling and unfortunately the prevalence of a snacking culture today means almost half of today's children have decay in their teeth.

Since the last NHS dental contract in 2006 a dentist gets paid the same for 1 filling or 15 fillings and this total , before tax etc, is around £20 in total I hardly think it's "creaming it in ".

Unfortunately as more than 3 sugar attacks a day will cause decay and the average British child eats more than 7 times a day dental decay will remain , after gum disease , the most prevalent disease in the U.K.

Fosterdog

But surely those studies are based on the same dentists doing the fillings giving the info on number of patients needing fillings. They're hardly going to say I gave them a filling but they didn't really need it, they will say, they had decay so I gave them a filling whether it is true or not and once the tooth has been filled it's too late to go back and check if it were true or not.
These days they may well get paid the same for one filling as for fifteen but they didn't used to and there will be some especially the old school ones who will give just the one filling to get paid, and then the next year another one when they will get paid again. It will only be the genuine cases getting multiple fillings that are actually needed.

brook2jack

Actually no. Those studies are done by the community dental service, these are dentists who are employed by the government and paid a wage.

They do not treat the general public so have no financial incentive to maximise the amount of decay , in fact exactly the opposite some would say, as the less disease there appears to be the less money the government will put into NHS dentistry.

One of the jobs of the community dental health service is to survey the dental health of the nation annually.

As the survey is done without x rays the rate of decay will, in fact , be higher.

Here is a report with some of the methodology used . http://content.digital.nhs.uk/catalogue/PUB17137/CDHS2013-Report2-Dental-Disease.pdf

All NHS dentists have their work inspected and statistically analysed and have meetings with CCGs on a regular basis. If they are doing too many or too few fillings, extractions etc they are severely penalised. So a dentist doing one filling on every patient every time would rapidly become an "outlier" and be subjected to intense scrutiny. This is an example of the sort of scrutiny a NHS dental contract routinely goes through on a three monthly basis
http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/DentalServices/Documents/DentalServices/Quarterly_Contract_Exception_Report.pdf

robatwork

brook2jack wrote: »

Actually no. Those studies are done by the community dental service, these are dentists who are employed by the government and paid a wage.

They do not treat the general public

Will try to make some time to read the report and methodology, but surely taking stats from community dentists will bias the figures as the sort of people they are in the main seeing, are likely to have worse dental hygiene than the general populus?

brook2jack

Community dentists also carry out dental surveys for the government to provide insights into the dental health of various population groups. If you read the methodology for children they visit schools in England, NI, Wales and Scotland in a variety of areas so they can also assess the effect of eg poverty on dental health.

These surveys are not based on people turning up for treatment but on populations purely surveyed for their dental health and no treatment offered.

They also do similar surveys for e.g. Older people living in residential homes , prison inmates etc.

As community dentists also treat those who cannot be treated in general practice because of eg physical , psychological needs obviously any survey on this group of patients would be skewed.

However research and epidemiology is a good part of the community dental service workload.

System

Next Thursday, I'm having three fillings done. One metal filling replaced as cracked and a bit crumbled away. Plus two white fillings on molars as my teeth don't have gaps. Got decay between two of them. I am in much discomfort.

The metal filling lasted 3.5 years. Had another white filling done then and the price hasn't changed.

My dentist gave me a Personal Dental Treatment Plan which looks like this



Plus gave me the pricing of each. I know how much to pay. Fortunately, this month and next, are council tax free months - no issue with paying.

This what the OP's niece should have been given. She may have signed something, which could been the above but wasn't told about this