Dental COVID question

belfastgirl23

Quick background: My dentist retired unexpectedly last year due to ill health and myself and husband chose to move to his daughter’s list - she was in the same practice (though not owned by them). We pay a Denplan monthly subscription. We have both only seen her once since he retired, for a check up.

Current situation: I was due a check up as lockdown started and had also broken a tooth around this time. Obviously nothing they could do and luckily it wasn’t causing pain. Another bit broke off during lockdown. They thankfully put me on the emergency list and I was able to see my dentist at the start of this week. Obviously she couldn’t do anything for the broken tooth yet other than clean it which is fair enough and they have put me on the emergency list for when they can do fillings again. That’s all fine.

BUT: during the consultation the dentist told me that there would be an additional charge of £18 for PPE during the filling appointment - apparently it would be more if I wasn’t denplan. Does full PPE really cost this much? In itself this wasn’t such a big deal but she also said she wants to replace three fillings over time, and that she might want to go back into another root filling her father did a number of years ago that isn’t causing any problems In case it might cause a problem. She took an X-ray of that tooth but it didn’t come out right. For the first time ever I couldn’t get my teeth to meet around the mouth piece. She also started talking about tooth whitening and I felt I had to be quite firm that i wasn’t interested. When I mentioned this to husband he reminded me that he came out from his initial check up feeling also like she was looking at doing a lot of work and he wondered why all of a sudden everything needed replacing.

I came away feeling a bit that I was being upsold and also concerned that the full cost of PPE was being passed on to me and that none of this info is on the website. I also felt uncomfortable that she wasn’t able to get an adequate X-ray. And more than anything, the mask that she wore was held in place at the top but very loose at the bottom so there was really a lot of gapping. As someone who hasn’t been in a room with anyone other than my husband for a good while this freaked me out a bit. At least for the next appointment she will have to be in full PPE but that made me quite uncomfortable but I couldn’t figure out how to say ‘tie up your mask’ to a trained medical professional. 

All of which is to say it feels like there is a trust issue there for me now. I was very inclined to trust her as I liked her father a lot - and over the years I’ve been through four dentists at that practice all of whom I have liked and respected. So I don’t think the issue is fully with me.  Obviously I have to see her to get the tooth fixed - and I’m hoping that her professional practice isn’t in question. But does anyone have any advice on the other issues? It is very hard to talk to someone when their hands are in your mouth at the time and usually by the time I’m done in the dentist I’m ready to be out of there. In particular I’m interested in opinions as to whether under Denplan there is a financial incentive for dentists to do more work? Has anything changed over the last while? Perhaps it is just an age issue and there is a lot of work overdue being done - I haven’t had much of substance done for a good while. Indeed perhaps her father was too lax and I didn’t know it. Would really appreciate opinions from the dentists here (edited to say not on the dental work itself but in financial incentives etc). And also info on the PPE costs are reasonable. I do have an option of changing practices (my dentist before her father moved to another local practice and I always liked her) if I’m unhappy and there are other dentists in that practice too - but I’m assuming that decisions on ‘sales’ are taken at practice level??

 

JGB1955

My husband was charged £7 for PPE when he went for his hygienist appointment last week. We're also with Denplan.

elsien

MyDentist is charging private patients at similar levels. Two rates, one for examination and lower risk, the higher rate for anything that involves drilling etc,
I suspect you are likely to find the same, give or take a pound or two, wherever you go. 

brook2jack2

First things first

when a dentist creates an aerosol now ie drilling they have to wear a pp3 mask which has to be professional fit tested . They have to wear gowns etc , but more importantly afterwards the room has to be left for an hour before they can clean it down. So in other words a dentist who might see 25 people a day now will maybe see 4 if they are drilling. Each room in a surgery costs £120 to over £200 an hour to run , so a room lying fallow for an hour means an enormous drain on practice finances. It also means only half the dentists can work on any one day as each dentist needs to work between two rooms. In addition to the nurse in the room they need another  nurse to decontaminate the room after the hour , bring patients through etc etc 

Most practices have spent thousands to comply with regulations on top of the increased costs due to one hour fallow times and extra nurse needed. 

There is no way any dental practice at this moment in the U.K. is making enough to cover expenses . the ppe charge is better described as a covid compliance charge and in no way reflects the true cost of providing COVID dentistry in these times. A chain of dentists has already gone bust alongside many individual practices, dentists have less financial help than betting shops https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/smallbusiness/article-8308261/Dentists-begging-Government-extend-coronavirus-support-schemes.html

Secondly on Denplan there is no incentive to provide extra treatment , in fact there is a disincentive as payment is made even if no treatment provided.

Finally by all means change dentists if you would be more comfortable elsewhere , however at the moment every dentist has a massive backlog of treatment to get through before they can even start on the massive amount of check up backlog. At the moment they are only allowed to do most urgent treatment and in some areas are still not allowed to drill . 

It will be a very long time before most dentists will be able to take on new patients, let alone see them as they will prioritise existing patients first. So check you can register with a new dentist before you leave the old one. 

brook2jack2

It depends on where you are, what your medical history is and how difficult the extraction is. Phone your dentist to find out.