what are the prices for crown nowadays...

Hi
I had a crown last year, and paid £350 for the great discomfort I endured to get the thing made. This was a private dentist who only does nhs treatment if you are on benefits, which I'm not. I have since discovered that this is probably quite expensive, but dentists are hard to find and I have been with this one for a while and not sure how easily I would get on anothers list!!

zico wrote:

Hi
I had a crown last year, and paid £350 for the great discomfort I endured to get the thing made. This was a private dentist who only does nhs treatment if you are on benefits, which I'm not. I have since discovered that this is probably quite expensive, but dentists are hard to find and I have been with this one for a while and not sure how easily I would get on anothers list!!

If it's still there and working in 20 years, it's money well spent. If you'd paid less than half that and it fell off in five years, with the tooth rotten underneath it you'd have been ripped off.

This is why it's all down to trust and a long term relationship with your dentist.

Davidboy wrote:

Just to note, I know dentist prices have risen sharply over the past year even for NHS patients, so add a bit to my quotes, but just gives you some idea.

D

NHS prices have not risen sharply over last year, increase was a pitiful 3.4% I think.

Davidboy wrote:

I had a crown fitted last year, I am with a NHS dentist (lucky I know!). I was given several options, a metal NHS thingy £80, gold £120, and a metalthingy but covered in porcelain to match colour of existing teeth £200 which is the one I have. Flippin marvelous it is too. I must admit I had a route filling first, so not much tooth left, and he just shaped the filling to the shape of the crown to fit on.

Just to note, I know dentist prices have risen sharply over the past year even for NHS patients, so add a bit to my quotes, but just gives you some idea.

Davidboy wrote:

Teerah - tell my dentist then please cos he uped my checkup and clean prices, I am sure by more than 3.4%. Took me by suprise how much more it was than last year. Mind you he did have a new car outside...!
D

Hi David,

I've lumped your two posts together here as they both contain a number of quite common misconceptions.

Only the first option of your crown was NHS (Which I think you realise.) The other two were private. Your dentist obviously has quite low private fees, but then if he stilll has a load of NHS patients, he is probably still working in the 'mass market' so can't really justify the higher fees with an increase in service level. Seems quite fair to me.

The 'lucky to have an NHS dentist' bit is debateable, but I won't go into that!

NHS fee rises are as Teerah says about 3.4%, but another misconception is that a rise in NHS fees is a rise in dentist's income. The fee paid to dentists has gone up 3.4%, I'm not sure how much the patient charges have gone up, as I've not charged an NHS patient charge for 7 years.

Next April, NHS dental charges are going to rise dramatically. (News of this was put out on July 7th, and the papers were obviously full of other stories on July 8th !!!) Dentists left in the NHS at that time though, are just going to be paying a huge chunk of those rises back to the Government.

If your dentist charges have gone up by more than that, he has probably gone private - although he should have informed you of that. That way he actually gets to charge fees that are in line with his costs.

As for the final bit about the new car. What would you like him to be driving? Or should we come to work on an old bike in a Monk's habit?

If you had spent 5 years at university amassing a massive student debt, invested c £250 000 in your own business, put your house up as security, had to employ staff with all the legislation that that entails not to mention the health and safety stuff. Spend the best part of most evenings doing admin stuff, having to find & arrange cover whenever you went on holiday or were ill, cope with an increasing level of regulation and red tape and have to somehow appear relaxed and soothing whilst performing what can be unpleasant things on peoples mouths, what sort of reward would you expect at the end of the day?