dental costs

worried123

Hi

my dentist is private and i have been going there for around 17 years. Over the last few years new people have taken over from my old dentist.

I recently had an extraction of a back tooth that could no longer be saved. (their fees say £70 for uncomplicated extraction which is what this was). I was charged £126. I know that £9 was for the x-ray.

I appreciate that in the wold of dentistry £126 is not very much but I have spent quite a lot of money with this practice over the years.

I was surprised to see when i signed a detailed list of the fees that she had also charged for an emergency appointment and also even charged to `assess` the tooth...surely any treatment has to be `assessed`. I wasn't in the room very long...very straightforward extraction.

i did not ask for an `emergency` appointment. i rang friday morning and she asked if i could come in on the following monday afternoon. i did mention that i felt a tooth needed extracting.

my old dentist would never have charged for an emergency appointment on that basis and certainly not charged extra to `look at the tooth`. again i do appreciate that 126 isnt a great deal of money but i feel quite hurt by being charged these extras and may consider going elsewhere if i am going to be fleeced at every appointment. People used to go to this practice because it was affordable private dentistry which has now been overtaken and refurbished with extra staff which obviously needs to be paid for.

does anybody here get charged extra for the dentist to `look at the problem` when they visit their practice - or be charged for emergency appointments they did not ask for...my tooth had broken - i didnt ring saying i am in pain please can you see me asap...it wasnt a check up by the way she told me to make another appointment for that.

grumble over.

brook2jack

Many people pay a monthly sum to their dentist which pays for check ups , x rays and emergency appointments , in which case they would only pay for their tooth out.

If you pay as you go then the difficulty is an unplanned or "emergency" appointment is very difficult to plan because the dentist has not assessed the problem and estimated exactly how long it should take. A patient can phone up and say they need a filling or a tooth out , but the dentist has no way of knowing whether that will be straight forward or complicated and how long to book out for the treatment.

So a unplanned or "emergency" appointment length of time has to be guessed at , and unplanned appointments will always take longer than planned appointments as x rays need looking at , medical histories updated and it takes longer to set the surgery up as you don't know , in advance , exactly what you will need.

In private practice you are charged according to time booked out and as unplanned treatment will always take longer than planned treatment it will often cost more.

The best thing is to phone the practice up to query the charge so you know why you have paid the extra .

worried123

many thanks. i do also suspect that we were spoiled with out old dentist who had low overheads and kept her costs down. certainly she never would charge to assess a tooth and never charged for real emergency appts where you got squeezed in the same day.

brook2jack

Unfortunately dental inflation has been running at around 20% for some time. In other words the costs of running a practice and complying with new regulations increases around that amount per year. Eg the cost of registering with cqc has gone up by 13% this year, over a few years the cost of registering with the GDC went up from £200 to £890 per year.

A dentist coming up to retirement might absorb these costs for a short while but in order to comply with regulations and not run at a loss fees have to reflect the running costs of a practice which will be £140 per surgery per hour in a very cheap area to over £200 per hour.
These figures are why NHS practices are really struggling, and many are shutting or converting to private practice because NHS fee rises to dentists have increased between 0.1 and 1.3 % over the last 10 years.

With plans such as den plan essentials, practice plan etc you pay £12 to £18 ish a month which covers the cost of check ups hygiene appointments , x rays and emergency appointments.

Every minute a dental Practice is open enormous fixed costs have to be covered. The minute you sit in the chair costs have to covered, even if someone is "just looking" . The unfortunate thing is dentistry in the U.K. is more highly regulated than anywhere else in the world.

Eg instruments now have to sterilised in a separate decontamination suite. That normally means at least another member of staff to run this plus the considerable costs of building,equipping and running central sterilisation.

Practices need to cover their running costs but they also need to be upfront about what these costs are. The good thing is they gave you a costed treatment plan. If you are not happy about the costs then speak to the practice.

worried123

You are so knowledgeable Brook2jack. I do see your point. I should really take out denplan.....(i think i felt hurt more than anything that as a long standing patient she charged me so much).

thanks again for putting it into perspective.

Are you a dentist by the way. you sound as though you really know what you are talking about.

brook2jack

I could say I was a dentist in mostly private general practice who was been qualified for many years and who helps to train newly qualified NHS dentists.
However as with many things on the internet there is no way of checking my "qualifications" so I could equally be a 14 year old in Tucson with an eclectic range of knowledge.

worried123

i will accept the first possibly lol.