Is this dentist trying to scam me!

SoupyNorman

Hi,

For the moment I wont name the practice!

So I went to this dentist for the first time recently, it's been my first visit to a dentist for about a year since my regular dentist closed his practice.

I attended the check-up where an X-ray was taken of my mouth followed by an examination of my teeth...at the end I was informed that I'd require 10 fillings, 2 of which may turn into root canals. Also I have two wisdom teeth that are not causing too much bother at the moment but will need to come out eventually.

The dentist was very nice and clear about the work that needed to be carried out, gave me an informative printout of the work with the estimated cost of total work....it came to about €1890. However it was pointed out that the RC's may not be required, the dentist said it would be a judgement call while I was getting the filling.

Then it was revealed that all treatment was 10% off until end of August and every 3rd filling was free...this made the estimated bill look alot better.

I suggested to the GF she try this dentist as it was so local. My GF is excellent on all matters dental (attends her dentists regularly) and after her last treatment was told that all her treatment was up to date (about 6 months ago).

So both I and her expected minimal work to be carried out in her gob.

Grand total for her was €2800 which included 8 fillings, 2 'possible' root canals and a crown!!! + the spiel of the 10% off and every 3rd filling free.

As soon as I saw this alarm bells starting ringing in my head...I'm not a dental expert but I know for a fact my GF would not develop the need for 8 fillings in 6 months or am I way off the mark?

From my point of view it appears that there is some questionable practices at play or the dentist my GF has been attending for the last 5-6 years is useless at what he does.

What do you guys reckon?

In the meantime we've both booked appointments with her regular dentist (whom she trusts) for a second opinion. In case you are wondering why she'd consider the change in dentist...it's because her regular dentist is located in the town we went to college in but now we live about 80km away.

georgieporgy

10% off if you do it now and every third one free is a new one on me. You learn something new every day!

Presumably these are Irish folks in an Irish clinic? (clarification; sorry, that sounds a bit racist and was not intended that way.What I mean is, is it an ordinary dental practice or is it somthing that looks quite unusual and different from other practices? the sort of place that might have a sales quota requirement for example)

Difficult to offer an opinion without more info. The new dentist could be really good or indeed a scam artist.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Opinions differ on when a tooth needs filling or not in some borderline cases, it does sound a bit odd all the same. Either your previous dentists did nothing and watched your mouths rot to bits or the new dentist is a bit drill happy. Also this 3 for 2 and 10% sale thing sounds a bit unprofessional, its more like aldi or moore street market.

Was any vitality testing done on the teeth? Were small inside your mouth X-rays taken or just a big whole mouth one? How many filling are in your mouths currently?

Second opinion FTW,

dont under any circumstances name the practice, the dentist or even hint at the area.

SoupyNorman

Hallie Tangy Sprinkler wrote: »

Was any vitality testing done on the teeth? Were small inside your mouth X-rays taken or just a big whole mouth one?

No, just the whole mouth X-ray.

Hallie Tangy Sprinkler wrote: »

How many filling are in your mouths currently?

I'm not sure to be honest, I have about 6-8 maybe. Cant be sure about herself but it would be less.

Overall, I would've been happy to go along with my treatment plan and cost as I had a pessimistic outlook on my own dentistry needs but I'm seriously flabbergasted at the outcome of herselfs outcome.

Hallie Tangy Sprinkler wrote: »

dont under any circumstances name the practice, the dentist or even hint at the area.

Roger.

day dreamer

without an examination and probably a few small xrays of individual teeth it is impossible to say who is correct.

You and your girlfriend have made an appointment for a 2nd opinion, and I think this is no harm. Dentist opinions may differ over 1 or 2 teeth or if a deep cavity needs to have a root canal treatment but not over 10 fillings and a couple of root canal treatments.

I would not be a fan of the offers of time-related discounts or 3 for the price of 2 offers, I dont think they are ethical as they could encourage over treatment. However many practices have reduced their prices in line with the current economic climate.

Let us know how things go

davo10

Something similar happened to me a few years ago. I treated a teenager for a few years, she went to college and had to see a dentist there on emergency due to wisdom teeth problems. The mother contacted me a few days later and said the emergency dentist said he could see lots of cavities in the interproximal surfaces on the large OPG xray and she wanted an explanation. Luckily I had taken bitewing x rays a couple of months before and when I got a colleague to view them, neither of us could see cavities. I asked the mother if she could get a copy of the x ray from the emergency dentist, turns out he hadn't lined the patient's head up correctly before the x ray was taken and the mesial and distal surfaces were superimposed on each other. He diagnosed these overlapping areas as cavities, I explained this to the mother, she contacted the other clinic and when they viewed their x-ray again they apologised for their mistake. This was a simple mistake as the patient's head was only out of alignment by a fraction in the x ray machine. Get a new x-ray and a second opinion before having this volumn of work.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Decay cannot be diagnosed from an OPG unless its massive to the point where it can be seen in the mouth.

vishal

That's true Fitzgeme, but sometimes you pick up things on a OPG and you say to yourself, I better take BWs, and sure enough, there's decay under an amalgam or there is a small class 2 you didn't spot clinically. There seems to be a big difference between some of the newer machines and the older machines. But you're right, you shouldn't use an OPG to diagnose decay.

Plus I agree with others, a second opinion would be strongly recommended

btkm8unsl0w5r4

The best predictor of future decay is past decay , so if the OP has 8 fillings already then its not beyond the relms of possibility that there is a large ammount of decay. Also people who switch dentist frequently tend to have more fillings because a new dentist will not trust that 5 year old filling that looks a bit rubbish but is infact OK. Only a dentist that has seen you on a number of occasions will know if its getting worse or staying the same.

res ipsa

Hallie Tangy Sprinkler wrote: »

Decay cannot be diagnosed from an OPG unless its massive to the point where it can be seen in the mouth.

Whatabout distal of 7's where theres an impacted 8?

digzy

You should see decay there on the bitewings.

Just to get back to the topic: I'd be a bit wary of the old multiple discount personally.You're not buying apples at a market!
Is there not a bit of an incentive to overtreat to make up the discount??

sudzs

I've been to few dentists over the past year and they seem to fall into 2 catagories! Must add that I'm in the UK and have only found this here!

There's the watch and wait, if it ain't broke, dont fix it type. And then there's the treat aggressively type who wanted to take out all my fillings and replace them before they fall to bits!

The former tend to be NHS practices (though I would have been there s a private patient) and the latter tend to be purely private practices.

In the meantime we've both booked appointments with her regular dentist

Let us know what the outcome is!

btkm8unsl0w5r4

res ipsa wrote: »

Whatabout distal of 7's where theres an impacted 8?

You cannot diagnose decay from an OPG, you can suspect it but you need intra orals for diagnosis unless its clinically obvious, Anythings else is being lazy. Come on res....next you wil be tell us you can do endo with a CT scanner

vishal

i heard about some endodontist in the uk using ct routinely on all molars. its a single tooth ct, dose of 2-3 periapicals or something

Big_G

Micro CT. They're doing a big study on it in UCLA I think at the moment.
You might disagree Fitz, and this is probably off topic, but the Galileos images that I've seen showed nice root canal anatomy, ribbon shapes, isthmuses, canal splits etc. Thought that might be handy. I would never take one for the purpose of endo though.

day dreamer

Newer OPG machines can do something similar, cone beam computer tomography. The endo I work with says they have a dose of a few periapicals and show good canal anatomy, he still uses periapicals though!

btkm8unsl0w5r4

I use a galileos CBCT every day and the images are not great for anything except bone for implants, caries and endo while sometimes good are inconsistent mostly due to any metal around and the scatter is crazy, look at the demo files no crowns amalgam, existing fillings, the scatter off Gutta Percha is bad also.

I was being sarcastic, res published a article on CT for endo in the irish dentist or was it the irish dental journal ?

The idea of purchasing a 150k machine to do what a 4k intraoral can is ridiculous, also the processing time on a CBCT is about 10 minutes....