Paying for dental care when you're pregnant

[vickie]

Can anyone advise? My dentist has told me that as they only take private patients that I have to pay for all my treatment. Consequently I have paid for 4 checkups and a scale and polish as DD is now 12 months old. Are they having a laugh or is this usual as I have spoken to other mums who go to private dentists and havent had to pay.

Any comments?

Vickie sounds like your dentist has chosen to only offer dental services privately across the board. Many dentists have done exactly this for a variety of reasons, not least because the NHS imposes a lot of terms and conditions on what we can offer our patients.This is a topic which is constantly debated within the profession.

I am in a nationwide email group of dentists and this is probably the most frequently discussed topic.

Some dentists operate a kind of mixed practice where they will offer free treatment to those who would not pay under NHS rules (including pregnant women, people on certain benefits, mothers of children under a year)but everyone else is charged at rates set by the dentist (if you work under the NHS they set the rates of what we are allowed to charge for treatment as well as imposing numerous other rules).

SO basically your dentist has completely opted out of the NHS and is quite at liberty to do so.

Hope this helps.

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We have Denplan, which we took out when our dentist stopped taking NHS patients a few years ago, and just kept up the payments while I was pregnant so that didn't have to pay any extra (also includes preventative care such as regular check ups and hygenist). They do see our kids as non private patients though.

Same here. All my kids have had/are having orthodontic work on the NHS which must have saved us a fortune. (Our Denplan payments - for DH and me - are nearly £30 a month but as we both have fairly dodgy teeth I look on it as insurance!)

there is a helpline you can ring (totally uselessly I don't remember what it is called but have a look in your local directory enquiries - or perhaps jasper knows?) to find out which dentists in your area are accepting which kinds of nhs patients. I got in with a private posh place that way - they were just accepting children and pregnant/one year after birth nhs patients.

I have spoken with the dentist this morning and they are happy to have dd as an NHS patient until she is 18 as DH and I are private.

The whole thing drives me mad...'free dental treatment to all pregnant women or women with children under 12 months' should mean just that!

vickie I see why you are vexed but really your dentist has absolutley nothing to do with NHS rules and regulations.
The fact that dental treatment is free under the NHS for pregnant women and mothers of babies less than a year old is neither here nor there as he/she is operating completley outwith the NHS for adult patients by the sound of things.

vickie, it's the same for me - I'm with a Boots dentist and have to pay (am very much preggo atm) but my dds get seen on the NHS by him. If you are that annoyed why not switch to an NHS dentist?