I've just paid £200 for dental treatment, was a NHS dentist, not anymore?

alison999

i dont understand what your problem is. most people would be grateful that they had a nhs dentist. private crowns ARE much better and more expensive. once the dentist has treated you as a nhs patient they cant then charge you are a private patient, you should have said you wanted to be a private patient when you rang to book in. also, its may next week, so waiting til june wouldnt be that bad especially when you havent been for ages.

Toothsmith

I understand exactly what you mean - although your post would be much easier to read if you put a few more paragraph breaks into it!!

This goes to the heart of what I believe to be the difference between NHS and private treatment.

I do not believe that a mainly NHS dentist can do 'proper' private work, as the whole practice is set up to getting through as many people as possible. All they can do is charge more for the stuff they do.

Occasionally, if the appontment book is set up properly, they can do a 'private' afternoon, here the appointments are longer, but is it really a private service if you can only see your dentist on a particular afternoon?

'Proper' private should mean that a dentist is looking after less people in total, so that there are more gaps in the appointment book, and so that all the appointents are longer. The dentist should slow down and be able to listen to the patient and have time to explain things properly.

Very often, the materials used are pretty much the same in NHS and Private practice - it's just that a much much better job can be done with those materials if you have time to really make sure that everything is done properly, and that edges are good, and bonding agents are used, and all the other little time consuming steps that often get left out when under pressure.

Basically, Lisap's dentist has offered to do practically the same job for more money, and I can see why she (he?) is a bit peed off about it.

Look at the notes in my signature Lisap and if you want to choose a new dentist, follow them.

Don't just blindly book another appointment somewhere without checking out the place first. You'll find out an awful lot about a dental practice just by popping in and asking for a fee guide, or practice leaflet.

I wouldn't cancel your appontment just yet, but I really would advise visiting the place you've booked into before you're actually due to go.

lisap4123

Thanks for the advice. Yes I think you hit the nail on the head really TS. Sorry about the lack of paragraphs - got carried away on a bit of a rant !! lol

I think what bothers me is that I work in Health & social care and I know that doing things to someones person without telling them what you are doing and asking if they are ok with it is a big NO NO. But I can appreciate the pressure that NHS dentists are under. On reflection I think I have just got a dentist who is particularly rushed. I agree it is just volume of patients that NHS dentists need. Therefore quality becomes a bit of a secondary issue. I will look out for another dentist but like you say I will take care over it. I dont believe however that NHS should mean poor quality service although I would expect a difference between NHS & private treatment.
Thanks - Lisa

Paparika

omg you have NHS dentists!!!

Recovers from shock.

My son and I have been with the same dental practice for the past 10 years (when they have a dentist).
When we have had our check ups every thing was great, NHS, tax credits so i was very lucky.

My son suffers from the same problem i had when i was his age, buck teeth, and too many teeth in his mouth, so he was referred to the orthodontist who agreed he needed a brace (train tracks) and said that the baby teeth need to come out first and ask for a referral again when this has happened, i was happy with that.

A few years later i was concerned as some of his teeth were growing out of his gums on the side (same as me as a child) so managed to get an appointment with dentist (dental surgery were losing one dentist a month by then) explained to the nice dentist lady the history, who said she would refer him, that was 2 years ago, she left the dental surgery and had not done the referral and we find ourselves off the NHS list with them again.

we get our appointments cancelled, then told they will ring us when a new dentist joins, we wait for that contact it never arrives, we ring for appointments and are told your no longer on the list!!!

Fortunately our dental hospital has been having a refurbishment and has been advertising on the tv, so we paid them a visit last week to get their advice, they said to self refer. They apologised that it would take about 5 weeks to get back to us, I smiled and said that what time we have already waited that 5 weeks was nothing.

If it wasn't for the dental hospital i don't think we would stood a chance of getting NHS treatment.

Toothsmith is this right, i grind my teeth at night and have sleep apnia and snore, a doctor suggested that i get a gum shield, dentist wanted to charge me £70.

I am exempt for charges because i get tax credits, yet a lot of treatment isn't available to me on the NHS because they charge, yet a few years ago one dentist was plugging teeth whitening on me,

"oh yes you need it yes you can have it on the NHS it will only cost you a few hundred pounds" i declined as this wasn't a treatment i really needed or could afford.

alared

I`ve been with the same NHS dentist for 10 years yet when it came to having two crowns done last year,he refused point blank to do the work under his NHS contract and would only do it privately.
It seems that NHS dentists can pick and choose which part of their contract they want to fulfill.
The choice I was given was pay privately for crowns or have them pulled under the NHS.

Toothsmith

alared wrote: »

I`ve been with the same NHS dentist for 10 years yet when it came to having two crowns done last year,he refused point blank to do the work under his NHS contract and would only do it privately.
It seems that NHS dentists can pick and choose which part of their contract they want to fulfill.
The choice I was given was pay privately for crowns or have them pulled under the NHS.

NHS dentists can't pick and choose what they do under the NHS. They have to do everything necessary for the patient's dental health.

Depending on the state of the front teeth, the dentist might well be able to argue that the extraction & denture option was a valid and cost-effective treatment plan. (You don't have to be provided with the very best treatment option on the NHS, just a cost effective solution to your problem.)

It would be unethical, and therefore wrong to take out teeth that were perfectly OK, and would have years of life ahead of them if they were crowned, but if they were pretty kn#ckered anyway, then taking them out is valid.

If you feel the dentist didn't offer you the right choices, then the PCT dental department would be interested to hear from you.

alared

I contacted both my MP and the local PCT.
Of course my MP passed the buck to the manager of the PCT,who answered in such an ambiguous way that the only alternative was to report my dentist to them.
With two broken teeth in need of urgent repair and no other NHS dentist available I felt I had no choice but to pay up.

Having said that,I can`t believe that a local dentist,who has practiced in the town for donkey`s years, would try to refuse treatment of crowns under the NHS if he wasn`t certain of his rights.
He even has posters up in his surgery showing the three charging banda and when I pointed this out to him he replied "I don`t do crowns under the NHS".
This lead me to believe that if I had reported him,he obviously knows something I don`t and would have got away with it.
The truth of the matter is the PCL are that frightened of upsetting NHS dentists because of their short supply,they would have said the dentist is within his rights.
With a couple of thousand patients on his list it`s not just me who have to cough up privately for crowns and bridges despite the fact he`s NHS.

lisap4123

My problems seem very small compared to the problems other people have been having. But it shouldn't be like this ! I can empathise with the dentists who didnt like the contract that they feel forced to operate within (my dentist has a sign on his surgery wall stating that NHS bands of fees are 'imposed by the government' so there is no misunderstanding he isnt happy about them. But I also feel that dentists are working the system to suit themselves, and at the end of the day it isnt working as the population are receiving a poor quality service and are made to feel grateful for anything they do receive.

Toothsmith

If he's just giving a standard 'I don't do crowns on the NHS' probably means he is breaking the terms of his contract - unless he didn't do any crowns prior to the new NHS contract in April 06.

The new contract had funding for dentists based on what they'd earnt, and how they'd earnt it in the last 18 months before the change.

If he'd been paid for crowns on the NHS before the change, then the money he's receiving now will be based on that. So if he's not doing crowns now - then he's basically defrauding the taxpayer.

I would take things forward with the PCT. It can be done without the dentist knowing who t was who complained.

alared

Toothsmith wrote: »

If he's just giving a standard 'I don't do crowns on the NHS' probably means he is breaking the terms of his contract - unless he didn't do any crowns prior to the new NHS contract in April 06.
.

The latter part of your sentence seems the most likely explanation to me and is something I didn`t (but he obviously did)know about.

So it seems that I am right in my previous post that they can virtually pick and choose what part of their NHS contract they fulfill.
Why give a contract to a dentist but exclude doing crowns just because he didn`t do them under his previous NHS contract?
Because there`s a shortage of NHS dentists is the answer.
Also how did he get away without doing them under the old contract?

I don`t blame the dentists for all the unrest but the government who imposed their stupid contract because they couldn`t find a sensible alternative.