This is a follow up to an earlier introductory post.
Reward for Failures
I don’t think there’s any profession that rewards failures as much as dentistry. When dentists fail to protect your teeth, fail to give you the right information to protect your teeth yourself, the rewards are enormous.
In addition to profiting from their own failures, the cycle of trapping you into a life of teeth filling, means after you move onto a new dentist they will continue to profit from your previous dentist’s failures. It’s in their interest as a profession to work together and maintain a professional image.
Dentures
Here’s one example. You’ve reached the end. After a lifetime of drilling, crowning, bridging and pulling, you finally need a set of dentures.
A lab that makes dentures will typically charge the dentist $50-60 for a complete set. A patient will typically pay about $700 to the dentist.
Who says you need to be nice to grandma!
Night Guard
Here’s another example. A custom fit plastic night guard, to keep you from grinding your teeth at night, can cost more than $1000 in the US. Here in Amsterdam, this costs about €300. I understand some people travel to Thailand to get these, because they are even cheaper there.
How much do you think a dentist pays for a piece of plastic molded to someone’s teeth?
Cost Base
Of course a dentist has costs, to run and equip an office, insurance, maybe advertising. These are not so different from any other profession.
There are material costs too, but nothing a dentist does costs them a huge amount of money.
Mostly, when he or she charges $1000 or $2000 for a procedure, these may take quite a lot of the dentist’s time, but the base cost to the dentist is not that great.
How many other professions charge so much per hour? For their own failures?
I couldn’t agree more with you on the issue of dentists getting rewards for failure, It;s embarrassing how expensive dentures are. My cousin had her teeth done when she was fourteen, just this evening she just noticed that her retainers have come loose, which means she needs re-alignment and the retianer replaced. All that is going to cost money. Someone should have done her teeth well four years ago.