Can anyone else not afford the dentist anymore?

[ithinkiveseenthisfilm]

Just looked into my dentists pricing as I’m well overdue a check up.

A check up is £250, with 4 x-rays once a year charged at £60 each. That makes it £490 for a check up.

A hygienist appointment (which you must book together) is a further £120 for half an hour.

I think I need a filling, I was told that would be a minimum of £600. So one visit could end up costing me well over £1,000.

All of the NHS dentists within a 100 mile radius are closed to new patients. I check regularly but what the NHS website says is very different to the actual reality.

It’s an absolute travesty. When did something as basic as dental care become a sheer luxury?

I’m in a small town but actually travel to another small town for a specialist dentist who offers sedation. All the local practices are full to NHS so this is all private but it’s much cheaper than that - check up £50 including x rays and off to the hygienist next week for £75 - were south west.

I do one day a week at an NHS practice. Yesterday alone the dentist had 5 people not turn up for check ups and 2 ring up in the morning to cancel. That’s 7 spaces where no money coming in. It’s a shame people don’t realise how lucky they are to have an NHS dentist. But sadly a lot don’t appreciate it.

Lol I don't either 😂

It is awful. At one point, everyone paying taxes expected to get all their care free, yet they're not offering you any of the taxes you paid back, are they?
Some people say use Den Plan, but you have to complete any needed treatment before starting that, so if you already have any issues, that might not help.
Maybe just travel to a cheaper dentist? Even if you have to drive for an hour, if it's much cheaper, as in the prices people are telling you, it's worth it. Please don't skip check ups, as it's not just about your teeth, they can pick up on cancers. This happened with a friend so I know it's true. Why are smears free and dentists not, even though both can pick up cancers? I don't know.

A check up here is £90 something pounds. X rays aren't taken annually, at least not for me.

When DD needed teeth out privately I called around for prices, which admittedly felt a bit wrong, like I was calling around garages for a new exhaust. Prices varied hugely.

That dentist is taking the mickey.

That’s very expensive. I don’t need a hygienist as the dentist does it every time I go. It’s a posh one so I’m surprised

Yep, that's wild. I go to a stupidly posh dentist because my teeth are a bloody fright show and she is nowhere near those prices.
That said, even the cheaper dentists are still a lot of money if you are barely getting by.

The trouble with deplan is that you have to be dentally fit to sign up.
I paid nearly £10k for implants, crowns and a denture about 3 years ago. It’s all failed, the denture doesn’t fit anymore and the implants fell out. The dentist won’t d anything now because it’s been over 2 years, so I’m now left with hardly any teeth. I can’t eat properly and I’ve got a tooth that really needs to go but I just can’t afford a new denture to replace it.
im so depressed about my mouth that I avoid going out.

It was out of reach for us until this month when a new NHS only dentist opened up 40 minutes away. The only option if you can't get in an NHS one or afford private is to wait until you're in lots of pain then get an emergency appointment and pay £30 for them to pull it, which is why I'm now missing 2 teeth!

I'm just outside of London and we're looking for another place to go for our hygienist appointments after ours went up from £80 to £115!! We have Denplan with my job but that pays only up to £70 per hygienist visit, so I'd still be nearly £200 out of pocket for the four of us - insane!

Wow that’s expensive! Mine is £70 check up, pay half on booking and then the rest on the day, x-ray £10, hygienist £70, same booking principle as a check up

About the same here - Northumberland.

But why are teeth and eyes different - and why those two specifically? If the NHS doesn't exist for those two essential parts of the body, why not also exclude, say, the pancreas, and tell everybody with diabetes and pancreatic cancer that, tough, you're on your own there?

Why is treatment free for children, older people, pregnant women and others if it's all considered 'luxury' extras to be able to see properly and live and eat without unbearable permanent tooth pain?

Maybe the thinking is that, like with prescriptions, check-ups at NHS prices are relatively affordable; but even that depends on whether you're lucky enough to be able to find an NHS dentist - and even then, £27 is very far from affordable for many, many people. And if you then need further essential treatment, it's just unachievable for huge swathes of the population.

We're lucky enough that we have got an NHS dentist, but even then, we have called to postpone check-ups when we just haven't had £27 available at all. Plus, there's the tacit threat of them throwing you off their lists if you don't go 'often enough'. They like us to go every six months and we do, wherever possible - not because we necessarily feel that we need to/can readily afford it, but because we're scared of them kicking us out. In that way, it works like an involuntary 'dental plan' - albeit £55 a year, including two check-ups - which I know people will scoff about how very cheap that is.

The problem is that even a 'false economy' is a luxury if you simply cannot afford it. It's a bit like when people insist that not contributing towards a pension or not buying critical illness insurance is a false economy; but when your choice is either to meet your essential bills now or live out on the street and go hungry now, so that you don't have to scrimp and save when you're elderly - if indeed you're lucky enough to live that long - what else can you do?

A century or so ago, people from poorer families would often have all of their (perfectly healthy) teeth removed once they became a young adult - maybe as a big, special 21st birthday present that their parents had been saving up for since their birth - and then replaced with false ones. This was the way that poor people were thus able to live without lifelong fear of needing essential but nevertheless unaffordable work to cure intolerable pain in their teeth - by having no teeth at all that could go wrong. Not my idea of utopia in a rich western country, personally.

Yes, that's very much a 'let them eat cake' attitude. The brutal answer is that, if you can't afford the treatment, you simply don't have it. You can live in constant pain and find eating an ordeal every day for many years; but if you don't have the money to pay for something, you have no option but to not pay for it and live (and maybe eventually die) without it.

I dont understand den plan? Can I start it up even of my dentist doesnt offer it?

I do a mix of NHS and private, my private is not remotely as expensive as yours, you need to find a different private dentist! Ours is £71 for routine check up and £23 for X-rays (outer London)

My issue is insurance like DenPlan will only take you when your dental health is signed off as good. I currently have 2 cracked teeth and very bad receeding gums and probably tons of other issues. I haven't been since around the pandemic as the dentist kept cancelling all of my appointments then they kicked me off their books as I hadn't attended an appointment 🙃
I would happily go if the dentist could say I need to pay £150 a month for 3 years to cover all the treatment but everywhere I've spoken to want the money upfront and theres no way I have it so I just keep ignoring it.

Mine is £70 a check up and £250 per filling. X-rays are included.

I have dental insurance at work but can only claim back the NHS costs. I had to have 4 fillings out of the blue in the summer and I’m still reeling at the expense!

I’d always had good teeth with no issues until I had children 😫

Those prices are insane!!! Definitely shop around.

I'm lucky enough to have an NHS dentist which is only £25 but I have a check up next week and I know he'll say I need a clean which is private and it'll be £85 so I won't be having that. My teeth are good ,I'm in and out of the hygienist within 10 mins so that's a LOT of money for not a lot of work. I think there needs to be different tiers of hygienist appts.

You only get totally free dentistry when you are on a really low income. It’s something like less than £6k a year. I used to work for an advice organisation and there used to be people getting penalty notices from the NHS Business Authority because they’d ticked the box saying they were entitled to free treatment and then it turned out they weren’t. The cost of all this bureaucracy trying to recover money from people after the event is mad.

so Do we but it’s only £15 fo under 18’s so very reasonable

Mine is £45-55 depending on which dentist you see, under 5’s are free and 5-18 are £15. X-rays are £12 and fillings £120. Hygienist is £70 I think it’s relatively affordable for most people and he’s a excellent dentist

Our dentist charges £90 for a check up and that includes an x-ray once a year (why would you need 4?) and hygienist once a year.
Not NHS - MyDentist. I have a checkup every 9 months.

You have to think of it as two different things. You couldn’t take out insurance on a damaged car and expect them to pay out for repairs - that’s the reasoning behind being dentally fit before signing up to Denplan etc. You could however borrow money to fix the car and then get it insured.

Some dentists do offer repayment plans for treatment. If yours doesn’t, another one might? Private dentists are in control of the services they provide and set their own prices, so it’s always worth shopping around.