dentist fees are ridiculous

[godfather]

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i just went to the dentist(i have no dental insurance) for a toothache, thinking i'll need a filling, instead this fresh out of dental school chic after she drills for awhile tells me i need a root canal. she then has the lady up front come in while she leaves the room, so that she can tell me how much it's going to cost me. Figure this $660 for a rootcanal, $210 for a postcore filling(which after i talked to oral surgeon friend in my med school told me i didn't need and he said a regular amalagm $70 filling would more than do) and $690 for a crown. Factoring in the bill for the Xrays the bill was going to run me like 1700 dollars for like 70 minutes of work. Now i almost had a heart attack and basically got the root canal done since she'd already started drilling and paid 660 dollars and waited for my oral surgeon friend to get back. He basically got one of his dentist friends to do the filling free for (and he basically told all i needed was the $70 amalagm filling, not a 200 dollar postcore) and told me i don't even need the crown as more than 80% of the tooth structure was intact. Now I was really pissed for 1 this lady was telling me i needed all of this just so she could line her pockets, two it is absolutely ridiculous dentists charge these outrageous fees. I mean to do like a appendectomy or hysterectomy you get like 1200 to 1600 dollars, and this is like invasive stuff and here for a freaking root canal these people are charging like 1700dollars. now that is outrageous.

 

[sistermike]

Any time you go visit any type of doctor, you are destined to pay a huge fee. A few months ago, I went into the emergency room, and I was in the waiting room for almost an hour and I was with the doctor for a matter of 10 minutes at the most when he said I was fine and I could go. The bill for this guy seeing me for 10 minutes was like $120.. ridiculous. Thank the lord for health insurance! But I personally don't have a problem with the fees. These guys/gals are going to school and training for like 12 years.. i think that they deserve to be reimbursed for the amount of time they have put in to assure people of their health.. 🙂

 

[edmadison]

Before I went to med school I had two appointments, one to have some skin tags removed from my neck (by a dermatologist) and one to have a small cavity filled. The dermatologist spent no more than 5 minutes with me and billed me $250. The dentist spent 45 minutes working on my tooth and billed me $75. I asked my old man (an MD) about this. His reply, "That's why you are going to medical school instead of dental school."

Ed

 

[Toadkiller Dog]

I'm sorry, I have to agree. Dentists are underqualified for what they do (they do NO residency training, like a physician), and some are just plain inept until a few years out of school. They often do just go ahead and do work before knowing what your insurance will pay for (and how much), thus sticking you with the bill.

I have seen at least a few (i.e, more than one) families struggling to pay $50 a month for a year or more for a dentist bill that they had no idea they were going to get stuck with when they went in for a toothache or a checkup.

Third, I'd like to add that most dentists don't go into the field because they feel genuinely called to dentistry (i.e, like those in medicine often do). They do it for golf and ka-ching.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Moving to The Dental Forum...