Is My Dentist Overcharging?

Vern1961

Vern1961

Vern1961

Soldato
Joined
29 Mar 2007
Posts
4,707
Location
Swindon UK
Note to mods, this is a question about costs not medical treatment itself.

My wife had a dental crown come loose and after one attempt to re-attach it lasted about six weeks, she has asked the dentist to replace it.

Now we are both on Denplan Care which is supposed to cover the cost of a crown (excluding lab work). The dentist has quoted £335 for the treatment. Research on the Internet shows the typical cost of lab work is £80 - £90 and some which have Denplan actually list this as the only cost for a crown, i.e. the dentist/nurse time + local anaesthetic are covered by Denplan.

I'm going to ring the dentist (and Denplan) on Monday to query the charge but on the face of it seems he is trying to charge the full private fee (between £350 - £500) with a bit of discount.

Can anyone advise further on this?
 
Is the dentist you see within the denplan care scheme?
If not, the having the insurance is worthless to you.
The labfee would be in the region of £100 for a very nice private crown, is there a post to go with it, as that can be a further £80 if done in precious metals?

Its possible they will get something made in lava by 3M using the laser scanning, personally, I am not a fan of this finding cut zirconia cores effective for back teeth.

If you are within denplan care, and the dentist is, then it sound slike theymight be dipping their hand in, or may have made a 'little error' when quoting you.
How much do you pay denplan monthly for you and the wife? Out of interest.
 
Did you not get a list of prices for lab work when you signed up to Denplan? My dentist does Denplan and I got a quote when I registered with the practice, I'm sure it included standard charges for items not covered by insurance.

That sounds closer to the whole cost privately than just lab fees.
 
Vern1961 said:
Note to mods, this is a question about costs not medical treatment itself.

My wife had a dental crown come loose and after one attempt to re-attach it lasted about six weeks, she has asked the dentist to replace it.

Now we are both on Denplan Care which is supposed to cover the cost of a crown (excluding lab work). The dentist has quoted £335 for the treatment. Research on the Internet shows the typical cost of lab work is £80 - £90 and some which have Denplan actually list this as the only cost for a crown, i.e. the dentist/nurse time + local anaesthetic are covered by Denplan.

I'm going to ring the dentist (and Denplan) on Monday to query the charge but on the face of it seems he is trying to charge the full private fee (between £350 - £500) with a bit of discount.

Can anyone advise further on this?
Click to expand...

Cost of a crown with my dentist, under denplan, is £50.

Your dentist is a thief.
 
We are paying @£21.00 each under Denplan Care, i.e. the full cover not the cheapo Denplan Essentials which I think is around £5 a month.

The dentist is most definitely in Denplan as it's plastered all over the waiting room and is mentioned on the quotation.

They even mention it on their website :-

http://www.bruneldentalpractice.co.uk/

Guess they had to pay for the leather sofas in the waiting room somehow...

I will be challenging this with them on Monday and notifying Denplan as well.
 
Hikari Kisugi said:
Not all, but this individual certainly seems to warrant some questions.
Click to expand...

I was generalising a little I suppose! I just keep hearing how the number of dentists undertaking NHS work is not enough and yet the number of practices is on the rise and they all have 6 figure wage packets...


But then I'm also aghast at GP's wages!


(and I don't read the Daily Fail!)
 
Well no one in my workplace has a 6 figure wage packet (not even close).
I guess we're doing it wrong.
NHS and PVT treament offered, there is a difference in whats charged and what the dentist gets paid btw, average would be around 39-43% of what you are charged goes to the dentist. There are staff, materials and labs to be paid.
Interestingly I think dentists in England do seem to earn more, working for the same NHS, seems to be a lack of adequate oversight. One thing about Northern Ireland is the oversight is quite apparent, there are fewer dodgy blokes, and no bash-the-nash cutting shops (often filled with derps).

Anyway....
Private dentists in England earn similar (slightly less) to the rest of Europe and the rest of the western world. That likely is a 6 figure sum, if it is not they are doing something seriously wrong, afterall, these people did train until 25 years of age to do the bloody job in the first place.
 
atpbx said:
They will all charge you the maximum amount possible for a crown which is £198.
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Ahh, has it gone up in the last couple of years? I remember reading that complex procedures cost £140 max, while waiting to go in to get a filling. Think that was about 2 years ago now.

Still cheaper than £350 plus denplan monthly payments.
 
Well rang the dental surgery this morning and they confirmed it is £335 for the lab work with the "Denplan discount". When I stated quite categorically the going rate is around £90 the response was pretty much "take it or leave it", i.e. quite unrepentant.

I then rang Denplan to complain but they neatly sidestepped the issue by saying they cannot control what individual dentists charge.

So at the moment we are just hoping that the old crown will remain re-attached longer than the first time it came off. I guess the best option is to change dentists but AFAIK there's no NHS dentists taking on in Swindon or nearby and going to another Denplan surgery is probably going to cost £60 or £70 each for the initial examination.

I'm tempted to report the dentist to the General Dental Council for investigation but looking at their website it seems they are only concerned with medical malpractice not dodgy pricing.
 
My wife is a dentist and we relocated to Scotland from England because of the changes taking place. Basically, what you are seeing now down in England is a result of the changes. The primary care trust (I think that's what she called it) was basically cutting a NHS salary by a huge amount and increasing the workload in many cases which is why a lot of dentists jumped ship and went private. This is the simple reason why there are more private than NHS dentists in England now. We relocated at just the right time as we could forsee the chaos it would cause. And for what it's worth, she earns more now than she did in England, but she works hard for the money!
 
Vern1961 said:
Well rang the dental surgery this morning and they confirmed it is £335 for the lab work with the "Denplan discount". When I stated quite categorically the going rate is around £90 the response was pretty much "take it or leave it", i.e. quite unrepentant.

I then rang Denplan to complain but they neatly sidestepped the issue by saying they cannot control what individual dentists charge.

So at the moment we are just hoping that the old crown will remain re-attached longer than the first time it came off. I guess the best option is to change dentists but AFAIK there's no NHS dentists taking on in Swindon or nearby and going to another Denplan surgery is probably going to cost £60 or £70 each for the initial examination.

I'm tempted to report the dentist to the General Dental Council for investigation but looking at their website it seems they are only concerned with medical malpractice not dodgy pricing.
Click to expand...

If it is £335 for the labwork then it is £335 for the labwork.
They should be able to produce the lab docket for you, and it should be a registered lab.
In theory a lab could charge this much, but to be honest it would be very very high end. I've never seen anything quite that high, even if you order direct from optident with no discounts.
 
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