To be angry at the dentist.....

[darkcloudlooming]

So I had An appointment booked today for a root canal. I’m a ‘fee paying’ NHS patient because I can’t afford private care (even though we cut back on everything and have no luxuries or holidays) and I had to really build myself up to go because I don’t like dentists and really am anxious. So I got myself ready and was prepared for the appointment and my husband had to take 3 hours off work ( was supposed to start at 10 but appointment was at 11:50 only one available and then it’s 40 minutes for the root canal) to look after my baby for this but then someone then rang me an hour before my appointment to tell me the dentist is not coming in because he had ‘broke down’ which we all know is a load of crap and the real reason is because they got a private patient in who can pay the £300 fee for the private root canal. They use this excuse every single time ! So now I’m left with an infected tooth and I pain! She then said in the Phone she’s not sure when this can be done now! But then found an appointment for half an hour and that he will have to ‘do wonders on This appointment and rush on the day as we are fully booked and don’t have a lot of 40 minutes appointments) Am I being unreasonable to be angry??
I don’t have the best teeth because of neglect as a child.. my mum didn’t care about oral hygiene, she didn’t teach us anything and didn’t take us to the dentist unless we were crying out In pain and she fed us on processed sugary ready meals and tinned food because she wanted to save as much as she could for her booze. So I’m really depressed right now! I feel like I’m judged every time I go to the dentist but my teeth were long gone by time I was 15 because of what my mum fed us in. There is no more NHS dentists around where I live and I have no disposable income to go private. I’m starting to feel really suicidal and wanted this out of the way.. :-(

Sorry, but you sound like all the patients that waltz in 20 minutes late for their appointment and then demand to be seen as “what about all the times you run late” (ie the ones that made me quit my student job as a dental receptionist)

Dentist could have a perfectly valid reason for not making it in, just because they choose not to share that with you does not mean they are lying.

As for fitting you in sooner, are they supposed to cancel other patient’s appointments to make room for you?

@darkcloudlooming

Sorry for your pain and inconvenience OP. I doubt if the dentist blew you off for a private patient though. As has been said, they get the full amount anyway from you.

Hope you get in soon. And I hope your pain is minimal.

@FairfaxAikman

Sorry, but you sound like all the patients that waltz in 20 minutes late for their appointment and then demand to be seen as “what about all the times you run late” (ie the ones that made me quit my student job as a dental receptionist

The dentist is late for peoples appointment WAY more than patients being late for them! Several dentists I have had in the past were always always always 25 to 40 minutes late ... ALWAYS. I never was late, and neither was anyone else who was there when I was there waiting.

Luckily my current dentist (in a rural area with only a few 100 patients,) is never late. I swear they other used to overbook! It made no sense why they were always late. Sometimes I would have the first appointment 9.05am, and not be called in til 9.25am. WTF was THAT about?!

Op the reason he didn’t do them to close together is to limit the amount of trauma being done to your jaw line and to yourself

Also as others have said the dentist gets paid the same regardless private or NHS patient so probably hasn’t cancelled you for someone private

All you can possibly do now is phone back in the morning and ask for an early appointment if you are in pain and if they try saying they can’t then you just have to be firm and either request to see another dentist as I’m sure they have more than one available in the practice

No I don’t expect them to cancel any appointment to make room for me but they could have called me early in the morning instead of an hour before the appointment is due so my husband didn’t miss a whole morning of pay and he could have gone back to work. My appointment was at 11:50, the practice opens early morning so they could have contacted me first thing instead of an hour before. They would have known he wasn’t available first thing, they gave just wasted my time..

Hiphop sometimes dentists run late because they see a selfish patient that’s “only” five minutes late (a long time of it’s a 10 minute appointment) or because by its nature dentistry isn’t always simple.**

Say your root canal takes 15 minutes longer than planned, they are hardly going to go “ding, times up - bugger off so I can see the next patient”, they finish the job.**

Funnily enough they don’t want to overrun either because it means everyone working late.**

Dark it’s perfectly possible that your dentist doesn’t start at 9 (my practice does staggered starts as they work evenings), or that the absence was unscheduled (ie death or illness) and break down is just the excuse you were told because they didn’t want to give out personal details.**

And believe you me. If the patients late the dentist is late and that puts the hygienist behind

Don't upset the hygienist

Well that's very sad for you but at least you are getting some de tap treatment. The taxpayer isn't so generous in a lot of other countries.

Hiphopcat.

I can answer your question as to why a 9.05 appt isn't seen until 9.25.
Dh is a dentist, nearly every day now he has 3 appts all booked for 9am. Receptionists do it because people phone up for emergencies and there's no where to put them as the books are full. Every day dh works through in his lunch break to catch up. I'll pass on your thanks.

I am a private patient at my dentist and the surgery has cancelled my appointments in the past due to the dentist being unwell. It happens. I wouldn’t think they have slotted in a private patient in your slot.

What on earth would make you think the dentist gets less money for doing your root canal just because you only pay part of the fee? Do you think dentists who have patients with an exemption form do the work for free? The dentist may well have broken down this morning, thus making him late and he’s hoped to make up the time during the morning and things just haven’t panned out and unluckily your appointment was the most convenient to cancel.

@Ttbb

My treatment isn’t free tho.. I have to pay... and my husband pays tax so he’s paying for my treatment no one else

and my husband pays tax so he’s paying for my treatment no one else.

I don't think that's how taxes work.

@steff13 the previous poster needs to stop saying the taxpayer in This country is being ‘generous’ to me when I still have to pay.. its not as if I get it free completely is it..

@FairfaxAikman

sometimes dentists run late because they see a selfish patient that’s “only” five minutes late (a long time of it’s a 10 minute appointment) or because by its nature dentistry isn’t always simple.

I doubt this very much. As I said, I see WAAAAY more 'selfish,' self serving dentists, than I do selfish patients!

@arethereanyleftatall

I can answer your question as to why a 9.05 appt isn't seen until 9.25.

Dh is a dentist, nearly every day now he has 3 appts all booked for 9am.

This is rubbish, as whenever I got there, (5 minutes early!) there was no-one else there. He sometimes didn't rock up til 5 to 10 minutes past 9, and then tootled around getting coffee etc...

Also Receptionists do it because people phone up for emergencies and there's no where to put them as the books are full. Every day dh works through in his lunch break to catch up. I'll pass on your thanks.

Nah you're OK... I won't be thanking anyone who gets fuckloads of money, rams as many people as he can in to make more money, and has, in the past, done treatment not needed, purely for the money.

Never known a dentist work through their lunch. Often known them come back 10 minutes late from lunch though. I think your husband needs to work on his time management skills, if he is regularly working through lunch, and have a word with his receptionists who don't seem to be doing their job correctly.

Someone said 'shit happens to dentists too.' Funny that isn't it, that when 'shit happens' to them, you are made to wait ages til THEY are ready, but if YOU are late, you lose your appointment, and still have to pay.

What a blessed life eh?

Hiphopcat

I agree with you

My husband had to pay a fee once for being a few minutes late so he didn’t get seen.. but dentists can cancel with an hours notice

@mum11970 I have heard a few times a lot of dentists leave the NHS and go private because they don’t get paid much for the work. I heard that they get paid little to so Work in the NHS and that’s why they don’t like to do root canals.

Hiphop have you ever worked in a dentist? Because I have.** For two whole years.

I’ve dealt with folk having tantrums because they rocked up 20 minutes late for an appointment and still expected to be seen, people who threw a hissy fit because I was offering g them a check up one day past the bang on six month mark and people who wanted an appointment at 3.35, not 3.30 and certainly not 3.40.**

Hiphopcat
I'm well aware I'll get deleted for this, but you are an absolute twat.

Oh and not forgetting the guy who threw a tantrum that we were running late because a patient had had a heart attack and the dentist had been doing CPR - he turned up as the paramedics were wheeling the guy out the door FGS!

@DancesWithOtters what last two posts?

I worked into my lunch break, and finished twenty mins later than I should have today. (Pretty much happens everyday). Six extra patients booked in with pain - all seen, and out of pain, four root treatments done, plus the other 25 patients that were booked in. All NHS. NHS dentists are under massive pressure. If you're lucky to be seen as an NHS patient - thank your lucky stars.

Dentists get paid extremely well so I don't have much sympathy because they might of had to start work at 9 am.

I worked in dentistry for over 5 years. There’s a lot of misunderstanding about how NHS dental contracts work on this thread.

There’s a good high level summary here if anyone’s interested: www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/12/nhs-dental-service-payment-system-tooth-extractions-children

The vast majority of dentists who leave the NHS to go private don’t do so to earn a bigger salary - they do so because they simply cannot afford to run their business under the NHS. That means keeping their premises, paying their bills and paying their staff. Their own salary isn’t necessarily a consideration (in most instances, not all). The Government (and previous Governments before them) is running NHS dentistry into the ground because it can no longer afford to fund it. It imposes impossible targets under non-negotiable contracts and punishes dental surgeries when they fail to meet those targets.

“Greedy dentists” is a very useful cover story that the general public has pretty much swallowed whole. When there is no more NHS dentistry we’ll blame the dentists, not the Government, which works out great for them.

In my experience, profitable NHS dentists (a rarity!) were usually fiddling the system - carrying out multiple simple treatments rather than one complex one, for example. (This is happening much less nowadays though.) That’s why so many have gone private - they were frustrated that the choice in front of them was to make enough money and offer poor treatment, or go private and practice properly. The ones who have gone partly private - essentially their private patients are subsidising the NHS ones (which is fine by me, tbh, as that’s how a civilised society should operate!)

Anyway, dentists obviously aren’t starving or homeless and are therefore very privileged, but they also aren’t (usually) the loaded moneybags people tend to make them out to be. Moreover, it’s a hard job - they’re specialist clinicians with a great deal of training, undertake work that is by turns stressful, disgusting and boring, and usually have to run a business at the same time. It’s not all sunshine and roses (or holidays and fancy cars).