Is this justified or just profiteering.

[Knittingsavesme]

I am staggered by the fact that my dentist is charging an extra £39.95 per visit for PPE. I found out via a FB local community group. It seems they are not alone. Charges locally vary from £7 to £115! AIBU to think this is ridiculous? £7 - £10 I can understand, but £39.95 per visit?

To be honest considering dentists use PPE anyway I think the increase in cost is partly due to increase ppe pricing but mainly for recovering lost profits. YANBU I wouldn’t pay it either

The type of PPE they are now required to wear due to Covid is different to before (and much more expensive). Needed for 2 people - dentist and nurse.
Plus they have to allow a significant amount of fallow time between patients.
It all costs money. Since most of them weren’t eligible self employment grants due to the 50k cliff edge, they’ve been living off savings whilst shut so many are facing their own financial problems. They also weren’t
given the rates relief many other sectors are

• so they have mounting costs from being shut. A number have already shut down due to finances and most are struggling to keep going.

That said obv it’s everyone’s choice to pay or not pay. The only thing is that unlike a hair cut which I can do badly on a family member, dentists are highly trained professionals and i can’t do their job!

its probably more the time factor and only being able to see fewer patients than the PPE costs.
Your choice to go - or find another dentist - but I know that will be hard for some in areas where dentists are few and far between.

@Desperateseeking I understand all that but the variance in the charges for PPE seems extreme.

A number of people have now reported, on the same FB group, that they haven’t been charged any extra for PPE.

It seems excessive. Dentists in general are not poor, incidentally.

We've been to the dentist a few times over lockdown and since. It's not just extra PPE. They are taking fewer patients because they are cleaning between. In our dentist's case they've got 30 minutes between patients. So they've got the extra expense of the cleaning and only around 2/3 of the normal patients and longer hours.
The cost of PPE has gone up with everyone wanting it, and what they're using is more than what they used to use.
I suspect that even with the extra charge they're still getting in less money than they did before.

I suspect the variance may well be due to their surgery hourly running costs - which are personal to each business - as that will affect the costs of the fallow time. There are also different PPE requirements for different types of treatment.

Durdlestairs- since it takes a long time to train and is a highly skilled job, they should not be poor should they? But most do not have 3 months of personal AND business outgoings saved up - and I can understand them wanting to make a profit from their working as else why would they do it? but obviously it is open to all to either not go or try elsewhere.

£5 charge at my dentist but at £101.50 for 16 minutes in the chair they ain't poor even if they are doing 2/3 of a workload. It's profiteering