I need the help of a few good dentists (preferably in the North of Ireland).

DeVore

Ok, this may sound a little odd.

I am working with a startup company and they are shipping people from the south of Ireland to the north for dental treatment. I'm tasked with sanity checking the business model and the website but I know nothing about dentistry beyond the fact that I have a mouth full of fillings.

I'm basically asking a favour that I could meet with some dentists either in the north (who would benefit in the future potentially from sales) or elsewhere with an eye on sanity checking my sanity checking

It wouldnt take more then 30 minutes. If anyone out there knows anyone in the north or is a dentist themselves then do please let me know. I wont waste your time!

Tom.

lomb

have you asked yourself why dentistry is cheaper in the north? its nothing to do with salarys as they make MORE than many republic dentists believe it or not.

its based on volume, if anyone thinks they will get something for nothing they are sadly mistaken. the thing is in dentistry mediocrity and crap dentistry take a long time to show up but when they do you can get massive decay from open crown margins, and severe unrelenting periodontal disease, bad breath where billions of bacteria swim in the open defects, decaying of the other teeth.
i will put up an xray of a british root canal shortly, and when i retreated it the other day. even my retreat is not totally ideal but it at least is at the standard of care. i will also put up xrays of open crown margins shortly. if anyone believes they can get fixed prosthodontics including crown, bridge and implant work done on the cheap they are in dream land. it all takes time, up to 4 weeks just to get provisionals restorations right before you even impress for permenants to ensure you dont get gum shrinkage and to perfect the level of the prepared tooth.

lab bills even in the uk from private labs approach 9 times the basic crown cost for a functional but open margined/ poor esthetics crown.

i have little to gain by bending the truth as i currently work in the uk in my own practice and have several years of experiance both fully privately and in an nhs practice. incidentally you can get good fillings anywhere if time is spent on them and the dentist takes time to remove the decay possibly even useing decay detecting dyes, but i think that you will find this will cost the same in ireland, in the uk or on timbuk two ie not a whole lot.

kippy

I got banned from this forum previously for questioning moderators who posted (with vested interests) about how cheap dentistry is not good dentistry. There were also a few other parts of the thread where I may have said a few things about certain practices taking place within the Irish market which may or may not have been good for the market.
Again, without wanting to get banned, I would have no problem in going up North for dentistry work. There are bad professionals in every sector and in every area - the cost does not always determine the quality of the work and I think a lot of people who have gone abroad and up North for treatment are happy with the service they have received.
Devore, I believe this company you are helping will do well and help improve certain things.

lomb

kippy wrote:

I got banned from this forum previously for questioning moderators who posted (with vested interests) about how cheap dentistry is not good dentistry. There were also a few other parts of the thread where I may have said a few things about certain practices taking place within the Irish market which may or may not have been good for the market.
Again, without wanting to get banned, I would have no problem in going up North for dentistry work. There are bad professionals in every sector and in every area - the cost does not always determine the quality of the work and I think a lot of people who have gone abroad and up North for treatment are happy with the service they have received.
Devore, I believe this company you are helping will do well and help improve certain things.

no cost determines nothing but suregery costs exclusive of drawing a penny approach 150 euros an hour in the uk or in the republic so draw your own conclusions. one of the hardest things in dentistry is not the practice but practicing on people who know absolutely nothing about dentistry and think you are out to rip them off or hurt them or something. this is rubbish, dentistry is a healing art and a branch of medicine.

kippy

Lomb,
I have no problem with Irish Dentists.
I havent had any treatment outside of the country and havent had an issues with treatment here so far.
I realise the time and training it takes to get into the job and appreciate why costs are high.
The consumer/patient has however, in their mind a right to shop around. Shopping around in the republic isnt really that viable as costs are very similiar. I dont see a reason why people shouldnt go up North or else where.
You said yourself dentists arent out to hurt you or rip you off and indeed if they are all of the opinion below:

this is rubbish, dentistry is a healing art and a branch of medicine.

then surely the cheaper treatments arent any worse for you than the more expensive ones?

Kippy

lomb

kippy wrote:

Lomb,
I have no problem with Irish Dentists.
I havent had any treatment outside of the country and havent had an issues with treatment here so far.
I realise the time and training it takes to get into the job and appreciate why costs are high.
The consumer/patient has however, in their mind a right to shop around. Shopping around in the republic isnt really that viable as costs are very similiar. I dont see a reason why people shouldnt go up North or else where.
You said yourself dentists arent out to hurt you or rip you off and indeed if they are all of the opinion below:

then surely the cheaper treatments arent any worse for you than the more expensive ones?

Kippy

indeed kippy, i dont think any 'normal' dentist sets out to do any harm to anyone. they do what they believe is best and the best they can do. dentistry is a VERY stressful job, there are 3 elements to it. one is practice management or setting fees, looking after staff, making sure they are on the same page as you , advertising and promotion, setting times for a procedure.

the next element is the patient element or being nice to people, managing their fears, reassuring them, advising them on treatment, asking them their goals and what their finances are if they have poor teeth and reconciling them. argaubly this is HARDER than the practical end as that is repetitious and this end is not, everyone is different and everyone has different goals and funds to pay for them!

the final element is the practice end of things, updating skills, talking to your lab tech, figuring how things went wrong (yes they go wrong ,there are hundreds of variables) and doing something about it. like for example that tooth i posted an xray of was badly infected inside, i made a error that i didnt file long enough and fill long enough, it is out by 1.5mm. in that 1.5mm there are perhaps 1 MILLION bacteria. it is within the standard of care, but i am not happy about it and i spent an hour thinking how i went 'wrong' and i will try not to make the mistake again. now look at the before and see what it is like. did the dentist even make an effort? did he do it maliciously, no i would say. but he was under pressure with a difficult patient where he had 10 minutes to do the job based on the hourly rate for nhs dentistry, surgery costs, and what he makes a year. now lets hope her immune system, my use of bleach in the tooth, and proper isolation of the tooth will make sure it heals.

there is little point in any mod or dentist repeating this here, as people believe what they want. bottom line, we are going to make(and you can take that as a fact) what we make , our surgery has the same basic overheads, lab fees for fixed prosthetics vary on quality by a factor of NINE, the only other variable is how long we spend on the patient, and our training. like it or not that is the reality.

eth0_

Lomb I think you're being very agressive on this issue. THe market exists for this company Devore is working for, and you saying all UK trained dentists are crap seems petty and offensive and isn't going to change most people's minds.

I live in Dublin and would *NEVER* use a dentist in the Republic again. I've had dentists try to push a completely unnecessary root canal on me which was going to come to 500 or 700 euro including the crown. I went back to my dentist in Newry and all it needed was a simple FILLING.

Another dentist in Drogheda did an incomplete root canal on a molar tooth, and never suggested crowning it. It snapped right down to the root six months later. I went to a dentist in Ranelagh to get it checked out and she gave me the hard sell to get a dental implant, a snip at about ten grand!

In contrast, i've never had any trouble from any fillings i've had done in the North as a child (lived there til i was 12, am now 25).

Devore - I can highly recommend Morna Baxter in Ballybot Dental surgery in Newry city centre. She is fantastic, doesn't skimp with the anaesthetic (unlike every dentist i've seen in the republic!), explains everything, and uses a fantastic laboratory - the dentist I saw in Ranelagh commented on the quality of the bridgework Morna did for me. And that bridge took a few months from start to finish, she didn't rush anything.

Tarring all UK trained dentists with the same brush is just ridiculous.

eth0_

lomb wrote:

but he was under pressure with a difficult patient where he had 10 minutes to do the job based on the hourly rate for nhs dentistry, surgery costs, and what he makes a year

Can you please explain why this is relevent to people who visit the North for private treatment?

Yes the NHS is sh*t and causes trouble for patients because both doctors and dentists are set ridiculous targets. But you forget that the NHS dentist these days is becoming an endangered species. And, like consultants, they can run private clinics, which is where us Irish go for our dental treatment.

Are Irish dentists paid on the double? Do you get money from the government per patient in addition to charging your patient before they leave the surgery?

Wight

Lomb, I'm not so put out by people going off and getting 20 crowns for buttons in some far-flung location. These are patients for whom price is all that matters. (Never mind they probably didn't need 20 crowns to begin with...) If price is your prime motivation, you aren't generally the sort of patient who is interested in doing the job properly. Do you want to treat that sort of patient? In my experience it's sould destroying. They won't do the job properly, and the whole mouth gradually slides into destruction...

From your posts it's clear to me as a colleague you're trying to do the thing properly. I can understand your frustration as it's upsetting to see people "butchered". But at the end of the day the principle of autonomy applies. People are adults and they have the right to make decisons, even bad ones. All you can do is advise them against it. But after that it's up to them. If it doesn't work out, well it's their problem, not yours.

You need to relax though. :cool: Keep doing it properly and it'll work out fine, you'll have a cohort of patients who appreciate quality. Quality will always out in the end. Those who choose to do otherwise, well that's not oyur problem. Once you've advised them correctly, your consience is clear.

eth0_

It's ridiculous that you're equating the disgusting price cartel of Irish dentists with quality work! I've never NEVER had a good experience with Irish dentists (read my post above). The vibe I get off them is more like that of a sales person than a healthcare professional.

Dentistry in the north doesn't cost "buttons". I saved just over 1/3 of the average I was quoted by Dublin dentists for crown and bridge work, hardly a pittance.

Mountjoy Mugger

Tom

I'd highly recommend that you get in touch with O'Farrell Staunton in Newry. I had a chap called Gerard (or Gerald) Daly doing mine. Extremely impressed. Their contact no. is 048 30262322 They've also got a website at www.ofarrell-staunton.com

I'm sure they're worth giving a bell to. I know they get a lot of customers from the Republic, and their prices are competitive. HTH

Wight

eth0_ wrote:

It's ridiculous that you're equating the disgusting price cartel of Irish dentists with quality work!

A cartel is price-fixing. If you have evidence of that you should go to the Guards, as that's a criminal matter. In my experience there are big variations in price from one practice to another, having worked in several. What kind of cartel operates with significant variations in price? That looks more like an open market to me. Also, if it's so fabulous for dentists in the republic, why aren't we seeingl oads of dentists relocate from N Ireland to the republic?

I'm sorry you've had bad experiences previously. But I won't be tarred with your very broad brush either, thank you all the same.

lomb

well wight they do say bad dentists and bad patients eventually end up with each other/ deserve each other.
however i have found that good middle class/upper class patients often end up with no teeth where i practice. this is invariably due to the fact that advanced dentistry cannot be made to work for peanuts. and people put different value on teeth. in the uk in general the nhs has instilled in people that teeth can be sorted out for a 'tenner' each. so a rich millionaire would rather fill his 80000 pound mercedes with 100 pound of fuel than pay the money it takes to fix one tooth properly. i suppose this is what gets to me...
anyway of course everyone is autonomous and i treat everyone as such of course, but dealing with dental phobics/ dental illiterates is a nightmare and a quagmire for dentists who have a philosophy of reconstruction over destruction which is rather cheap , nasty ,and easy.

Wight

Lomb, been there done that. It is frustrating, but I think that comes with the job. You do your best, and that's it. After that it's up to patients. Why are you getting your blood pressure up over others life choices? People buy SUV's to be "safe" even though US figures will show SUV passangers suffer 3% more fatalities per 100 million passenger miles. (Higher risk of roll-over is thought to be the main factor) So they're effectively no better, maybe even slightly worse.

I know what you mean about the Mercedes tho. It's funny how exactly that profile of patient will make those sort of choices, yet an 18 year old working in a poorly paying job who really does need a crown will suddenly turn up 6 months later having saved up the money wanting to go ahead with it.

lomb

eth0_ wrote:

Can you please explain why this is relevent to people who visit the North for private treatment?

sure, see post #4 and last paragraph of post #6

lomb

eth0_ wrote:

Tarring all UK trained dentists with the same brush is just ridiculous.

i am not/have not tarred any uk trained dentists, all i am saying is that if all you look at is cost then you will get what you pay for thats all. you saying all republic dentists from your perspective are overpriced and incompetent is just as wrong.

you can get some very fine dentistry in the uk or anywhere in the world, all i have said is it takes times and costs quite alot of money because of that if someone has problems thats all. howver what something costs and is worth depends on what value is placed on that. i can equally say that 350 grand for a 1 bed shoebox in dublin that the average person will spend his life paying off is overpriced, but apparantly it isnt as that is what the market value is and what 2 or more people are willing to pay for it.