Went to the dentist last week for the 6 month check up i had no problems up to that time, sat in the waiting room had to fill out another questionare on my health etc (do this every time i go).
Got my appointment on time he examined me and then said he want to take X rays ok i thought fair enough, then said the tooth at the back is not forming correct after the last repair he made 1 year ago & requires the tooth at the far back to be pulled out even though there's nowt wrong with it to repair the one in front!
He wants to do a crown the far back tooth is doing nothing important he says but the other needs a repair fast!, so i told him im in no pain and have had no trouble, then he seemed a little anxious that it really did need doing so i asked the price £520.00
Wot the heck is going on are the dentists very quiet? is nobody having work done due to this resesion? is what i think, besides isn't there a cap on the price at just under £200.00 for NHS patients?
I got another appointment in 6 months time if i have problems to make an urgent appointment..............
The last guy who ran this place was a decent guy who did it by the book this firm took over some 3yrs back and seem to be after making money...
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Not *that* experienced, but I needed a bit of dental work with my NHS dentist - a previous root filling kept developing an ulcer. She told me that they could do the work for something in excess of £400 (at the time) so I said I'd just keep some Amoxcyl by my side.
By the next annual check up it became too much and I asked again, and she told me that the procedure could be carried out on the NHS in the dental dept of a hospital but there was a 4 month waiting list which was why she'd recommended a colleague and this expensive route.
I got her to refer me to the NHS and had the work done for free and ditched her.
As far as I recall, crowns etc on the NHS are made of supposedly lesser substances, and may not be as white, as private ones. I have a couple of gold ones a long way back in my mouth which I think were probably NHS, well over 15 years ago, so they seem to last...
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Yes i have gold one which is good that would be fine but im not paying for private when im NHS they can jump.!
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I always feel at the dentist its a bit like being hit with a sudden big bill for your car, you want to take it somewhere else for a second opinion!
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This is an email I sent to a friend just 10 mins ago,
A lot of it you'll not understand, but you'll get the picture ~
Antibio's will nuke it, but that's not all they will nuke :(
I have had a 4 span bridge for over 20 years but it has come away from one of the anchor teeth,
I have been told repeatedly by Dentist's for the last 12 years that I need to have the bridge removed and replaced at a cost of about £1200,
If I eat sugar ~ any sugar, I get a flare up + bleeding,
This is the way I have got through the 12 years ...
If I get a bad flare up, I'll take Colloidal Silver + Vit C + Zinc,
I also (and this is very, very important) use Coconut oil for 'pulling', I do this 1st thing in the morn for as long as I can,
I also have a Panasonic oral irrigator - nuffink to do with sex (I'm afraid) ... I use it to 'jet wash' all my teeth but playing particular attention to the bridge area and I would do that after every meal,
Lastly, I use an Oral B 'sonic' toothbrush with natural 'Kingfisher' toothpaste.
This is the way I plan to go on until I go into 'the heater'
I haven't been to a Doctors for 16 years cos I know I'd come away with a prescription for diuretics, beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, ace inhibitors, glyburide or metformin and - I ain't having none of it.
V'
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I am very sceptical of the dentists motives these days. They seem to be money grabbers.
An example .....
....I had root canal work and a crown free on the NHS in the Mid 70's .
In the late 90's my dentist at that time , a young lady of Iranian origin advised that an X ray showed an infection under the crown and that it would have to be replaced at massive cost.
I politely declined in the basis that I had had absolutely no pain from it for years and I was not about to shell out that sort of cash until I had to.
I was given dire warnings about how I could potentially die from such infections and that it must be done at once....I still politely declined.
Fast forward to last year, still alive and kicking I visited my latest dentist , a very nice Greek who carried out a check up with X rays and who then came up with exactly the same story about an infection under the same crown and how it needed to be replaced , root canal work etc at even more exorbitant cost. Again I politely declined
No pain from the crown, I'm still alive and just wondering if they teach such scams at dental school.....
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They learn how to charge from veterinarians!
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It must be like the fast fit places sell shockers and brakes here it's fillings and crowns.
They think they have you by the danglers but now more dentists have opened in my town and offering places to NHS patients.
It may be time to look elsewere.
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No free dental care here, of any kind, here in Spain.
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>>I haven't been to a Doctors for 16 years cos I know I'd come away with a prescription for ...
Dog
I hope you are getting regular eye tests and a blood pressure monitor is not expensive.
It certainly concerns me that doctors appear to be on a bonus for the number of patients checked for this or that.
Good luck and I hope you have many more years...................
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>>and a blood pressure monitor is not expensive.
As Dog admits to being a health freak, he'll have one of these for certain!
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>>Good luck and I hope you have many more years<<
Cheers comrade, I do have a BP monitor (hehe!) + a blood glucose monitor, although I'm not diabetic.
Yes, eye test's are to be recommended being they can find many ailments & diseases I believe,
Dentist's & GP's practices are (IMO) 'just another business' - they NEED people with their ailments & diseases to pay the bills etc.,
Sure I know Doctors do wonders with many folk like the old geezer with the Jowett but,
I know of cases where people have died because of their negligence,
I am prone to generalize too much (I'm told) so I take my hat orf to the good Dr's & Dentists out there.
P.S. keep well Teddy :)
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>> Sure I know Doctors do wonders with many folk like the old geezer with the
>> Jowett
Cheeky bogger.........go eat your Chappie :-)
Ted
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>
>>
>> Wot the heck is going on are the dentists very quiet? is nobody having work
>> done due to this resesion? is what i think, besides isn't there a cap on
>> the price at just under £200.00 for NHS patients?
>>
I have been using private dentists for years but have never yet had any attempt to do unnecessary work as all work that has been done has been instigated by me. There was a temp new South African locum a few years ago who tried to get me sign up to see the hygeniest at 3 monthly polishes, but when I saw the regular owner next time, he said that was an error.
Funny world where folk (men and women) think nothing of paying over the odds, to keep thier cars looking pristine and have oil changed every few seconds despite manufacturers saying it is fine for years, and are happy to spend a fortune at the hairdressers, and splash out at the beauty products counter for products because the celebs say they're "worth it".
I wonder why the British are world renowned for their teeth?
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I have paid for private treatment many times, I had all my mercury fillings (Amalgam) replaced with white at great cost.
But I remember a time when most people got Dental treatment under the NHS,
We (the people) paid in for it - that's the way the NHS works,
The situation Re: NHS Dentists is improving but there are people who are suffering because they can't get an NHS Dentist and they simply can't afford to 'go private'.
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When i got the bill for the check up it was the £16.50 nhs price so why try the private price for the work? must think were all daft.
No im not paying private prices i pay my taxes ill have the nhs price as and when i need it not when i don't.
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The practise that I use does private and NHS dentistry. If you are a private patient, then you get to see the top man who owns the practise.
Go on the NHS and you get the students fresh from dental school and they never seem to stay longer than a year so there is no consistancy to the quality of treatment. For this reason I am thinking of going private soon, though I feel upset that we don't get as good a service on the NHS as you do going privately and we have to pay "through the nose"
Dentists are always crying the poor pay on the NHS, but have a look in the car park at their cars.
Last edited by: MrTee43 on Thu 27 May 10 at 15:49
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We have several in the area. The one on the corner of our road is strictly private. The Porsche parked at the rear with it's CCTV coverage all needs paying for. My MIL had some trouble with a crown in the last year of her life. She was a patient and we took her in. She was charged £60 for glueing it back....3 times in a month. Big telly and fish tank in very swish reception.
They annoyed the neighbours considerably by removing all the vegetation in what was a mature front/side garden and pebbling the whole area. No membrane so just weeds all over now.
My own guy does only NH and works in the morning at a drop-in centre helping less fortunate people. Reception is a hole in the waiting room wall, old magazines, a rocking horse for the kids and clean but drab decor. family car, puts money back into the practise
As a tooth doctor, he's spot on.
I know who I prefer.
Ted
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I can smell something here, maybe a strong dose of politics of envy going on here regarding the income and high value cars of Dentists.
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Until a bit over 2yrs ago, and for about 18yrs prior to that, we were in the hands of local NHS dentists... and you had to think yourself lucky to find one. Our practice had a massive turnover of dentists who were all new to the UK and seemed to disapear back home after 6-12mths. They gave some of the roughest and most short sighted treatment possible. I've had infections after work, the wrong tooth extracted and seen one of my children held down by force to complete a filling.
Then we heard of an dentist who'd been our first excellent guy when we first set up home 25+yrs ago.... he was still about but private only now. So we bit the bullet and signed on with him privately in a deal whereby he'd treat the children NHS as long as we continued with him.
It took him about £2000 (yes it does seem a lot!) of work to sort out the dentistry of the previous cowboys for self and wife but all was properly explained and once done he's not looked for extra work since at checkups. His kind ways have cured our previously phobic 13yr old. We're damn lucky to have found him... goes to show they're not all crooks.
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Unfortunately NHS dentistry is under-funded and the the dental laboratories price of, say, a decent crown or bridge can often exceed what a dentist is paid by the NHS - which is why: 1. They have to find other work or not do it at all. 2. Get the dental lab work done in Turkey or China, with consequential affects on the quality (?).
My wife is a dentist, so I get the work done for free! But as I have to remember to be nice to her for weeks before-hand so that the experience is pain-free, I sometimes think it would be easier to go NHS!
Last edited by: Boxsterboy on Thu 27 May 10 at 17:25
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No, John, discussions like this aren't always about envy. I know personally a couple of dentists who I am not envious of in the least, but I'm quite in awe of their greed and cynicism when it comes to patients and screwing what they can from the NHS, and the tax man (ever noticed that the dentists have a few items for sale? Apparently that's so they can claim VAT back on the whole of their business.)
They may not be representative but it's helped form my opinion.
Last edited by: smokie on Thu 27 May 10 at 17:37
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Medical services are not VAT-registered.
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Maybe I'm labouring under an old loophole long since closed - but my point about it not always people being envious still stands.
This article discusses the so-called toothbrush loophole as recently as 2006 www.taxationweb.co.uk/forum/dentist-t14274.html but it used to be a much larger loophole as I understand it - closed pre 1994 according to this one www.taxationweb.co.uk/tax-articles/vat/vat-refund-opportunities.html.
Only being a tax payer rather than a tax expert I have no real idea what the benefit might have been, but there was definitely some dodge which was exploited.
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Has anyone ever had any work done abroad ?
I read of a growing number of people who go to other countries and find state of the art surgeries and prices that are half of ours in blighty.
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>> Has anyone ever had any work done abroad ?
>>
>> I read of a growing number of people who go to other countries and find
>> state of the art surgeries and prices that are half of ours in blighty.
>>
Yep. My missus gets work done in Serbia for under a quarter of the UK price. She gets it done when visiting family, so it's trips that we would be taking anyway.
But even if you add a flight and a night's accomodation it would still work out cheaper for bigger jobs.
Personally I haven't been to a dentist since 1992. I have absolutely no problems with my teeth or gums, I never even had any fillings previous to that. I think they're made out of kryptonite or something.
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>>
>> Only being a tax payer rather than a tax expert I have no real idea
>> what the benefit might have been, but there was definitely some dodge which was exploited.
>>
I can now smell something else here, maybe a strong dose of politics of envy regarding the tax "perks" available to businesses.
Surely smokie cannot be aware that there is tax avoidance, and then ther is tax evasion.
Private Dentists run a business to amke as much profit for themselves as the market will bear, but the ones I know (and I know quite a few) are generally straight and give top service at top prices. Some NHS dentists whose moral compass is slightly out of kilter may find unnecessary work or other ways of defrauding the NHS and or the patient. i also know of private GP practices that are sprouting providing instant GP services but at mouth watering prices. I recently needed a jab which my GP does not provide even at a fee. For example, they do Hep B for £25 a shot but the one I needed was not offered by my GP. I was referred to the local NHS hospital who said they only provided that jab for their staff if required for occupational protection. My GP then referred me to three local private GP clinics, all run by South African doctors as it turned out. Their charges for the 3 shots I needed over 2 months but taking a total of less than 10 minutes in total ranged from £240 to £300!
(Anyone heard of the MPs' and their second homes capital gains wheeze?)
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As previously stated I don't suffer envy, it's more just a resigned acceptance of greedy people getting their snouts as deep into whatever trough they can, be they politicians, dentists, whatever, but especially those who chose a "public service" career but have managed to turn it into self service. We have an NHS overburdened with expensive consultants and managers yet the front line staff still struggle to earn a decent wage.
Even you yourself mention the "mouth watering prices" for "instant GP services". Can we assume that you just happily paid up as the cost is set by market forces?
You say that private dentists run a business to make as much profit for themselves as the market will bear. Clearly from other contributors to this thread, they are pushing those boundaries. And unfortunately for the "little people", in many areas there are very few NHS dentists for those who cannot afford to go private.
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A trip to the dentist............. - smokie
