ONTD Political

"Being broke is nothing to be ashamed of"

4:48 pm - 12/06/2012
Posted on December 3, 2012

By Jeff Nall
Truthout | Op-Ed











7 Simple Steps to Revolt against Plutocratic Mythology










ljtaylor 7th-Dec-2012 01:09 pm (UTC)
Here pulling teeth is one of the only dental things that isn't automatically repaid, mostly to force dentists to put more effort into saving teeth rather than pulling them.

Yeah according to my former flatmate, a dentist, in the UK NHS dentists are more likely to pull teeth because it's cheaper than going on to do crowns on a filled tooth.

Honestly though I have a hard time trusting dentists. I have a private dentist, not through choice because registering with an NHS dentist is a lottery in parts of the UK and, many years ago I had a cap filling. I side-eyed it a bit at the time because, appropriately, the dentist had just got a new piece of laser-type equipment and he was like "ooh I finally get to try this out!" This was my first filling and I didn't think to ask for an x-ray beforehand. But hey, I'm not a dentist and I trusted his judgement. I haven't had any other fillings since (I guess I have enamel like Adamantium) but a few years afterwards I got a new dentist who was all, "uh somebody did a cap filling on a healthy tooth and now you have a cavity underneath". Cue my having to shell out for a proper filling. But at least she x-rayed it to show me the cavity. Lesson learned... get visible proof of your cavities...

ETA: I still have to say it is WAAAAY cheaper than $1500. Jfc. I can't imagine how mad I'd be if I'd shelled out that amount of money and the same thing had happened to me in the US...

Edited at 2012-12-07 01:13 pm (UTC)
liliaeth 7th-Dec-2012 01:26 pm (UTC)
I'm actually quite happy with mine. I mean, I know little or nothing about teeth, or dental care, but he's often informed me of my options, so I could take a cheaper alternative that has the same result as a more expensive form of dental care would have had.
ljtaylor 7th-Dec-2012 01:56 pm (UTC)
Yeah I've had many dentists over the years, unfortunately the best one I ever had switched professions so I only saw her twice! She also talked me through my options. I had another who scaled my gums and told me it didn't hurt when I complained that it did, so I made sure I never saw him again :/ But I live in Sweden now, dunno if that's any different!
luminescnece 7th-Dec-2012 05:27 pm (UTC)
That's not the end of my dentist fuckery in Canada... When I was getting coverage through the BC healthy kids program, the only reason I *got* dental coverage as a child (which I am thankful for...

The BC government put the program into action and never updated the costs of the procedures covered, so by the time I was 17 there was a substantial difference in the cost that dentists would charge patients and the cost covered by the program. What most dentists were doing was charging poor families up front and giving them what the government gave them to cover their service.

Example. If child's filling will cost 380$, poverty stricken family is supposed to get 380$ and WAIT to get reimbursed with 2/3rds of what they paid.

Bullshit. My family couldn't afford it.

What we did was go to the only dentist in the area that would take people covered by the BC healthy kids program without charging them up front.

The dentist covering me without charging upfront did a procedure I didn't ask him to. He put a cap on a tiny tooth I had to make it look normal when I though I was going in for a filling, and when I eventually went in for the filling, he gave me one shot of freezing and worked on me within 20 minutes. When I told him I could still feel it he told me he could patch me up and send me somewhere else or I could sit there and finish because he couldn't wait any longer or give me any more.

So I sat there and got the filling and cried minimally and never went back.

Same guy that treated my dad great when my dad was paying upfront for everything.

(For comparison, my current dentist gives me two-three shots of freezing on the bottom and has to wait 45 minutes for it to kick in because my lower jaw is just the way it is).
the_physicist 8th-Dec-2012 12:15 am (UTC)
if i had to go privately for dental care and pay US prices i would hop on a ryan air plane and go east of the EU just for the weekend. that would be cheaper.

as it is i go to an NHS dentist who doesn't ask for details and doesn't want any money. the admin cost of filling in the forms correctly to get the money from me is apparently more than the money i am supposed to pay them. i think they should do that at every dentist. i don't get the whole 'pay a bit of the treatment' thing. you don't make people who break a leg while playing football pay towards the A&E visit costs.
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