The best dentist I ever had was the one we had at the Apple campus. He was paid by Apple and everything was covered by corporate, more or less (whatever the insurance didn’t cover beyond copay was paid by Apple if I recall correctly).
I saw them for awhile and we got friendly. He was a younger guy and told me that he was probably one of the few honest dentists in the area because his pay wasn’t dependent on high dollar procedure to make enough to keep a practice open. Apparently, unlike medical insurance, dental insurance pays pittance for most things, so upselling procedures is how dentists really make money, usually.
Best dentist I ever had. Rarely did I need more than regularly scheduled cleanings and when I did he always started with the least invasive options (I grind my teeth in my sleep and before I realized it and got a guard there were complications)
I miss that guy. I’ve been suspicious of dentists ever since and look for signs.
In Canada, they're essentially running a business, and one which (decades ago) specifically avoided the socialized health system which we have for regular doctors and such now.
I've got pretty good teeth, but am certainly wary of some of the recommendations I've had. Did have to have a molar out (hole all the way to sinus), no doubts there. The regular dentist said, "hey, you should get a bridge!" The specialist who did the removal and bone graft let me know that was the worst possible choice. Better to leave a gap, or get an implant if I want, but a bridge is caps on the adjacent teeth that will eventually wreck those teeth too. So him, I trust.
Making a bridge is considered malpractice now. This is what my younger dentist told me. I had an older dentist in the past who recommended a bridge.
Making a titanium implant or just leave it is the best option. Only if you are over 80 years or have some other issues (making it more risky to do the implant operation) should you go the bridge route instead of making an titanium implant.
To make a bridge you have to destroy (grind down into cones) two teeth adjacent to the bad/missing tooth onto which they glue the bridge. Crazy. On top of that you will forever have issues cleaning below the bridge which probably also causes your other good teeth to decay as more food and bacterias are sticking around.
Similar story. Moved to Bay Area, coworker recommended dentist told me I need to pull all 3 wisdom teeth left and get a night guard. Quotes me >$3500.
Funny that I went to the dentist in my home country just before I moved and they said all good. Went to another dentist (which I'm still with and absolutely love) and over past 4 years we haven't pulled a single wisdom tooth and I still don't have a night guard.
And the piece has at the very beginning: "The idea of growing new teeth is every dentist's dream. I've been working on this since I was a graduate student. ..."
I'm not sure how involved this new teeth growing process is, but I can imagine it's not going to suck as much value out of you as a dentist can. Perhaps this isn't even done at the dentist (I hope so actually.)
I always felt like I was getting screwed by my dentist, but then I walked through a, what we'd here call a "volksbuurt", a neighborhood that isn't particularly rich. Saw a dentist, and it seemed more like a community place. I walked in, registered and have loved it ever since. They think along with me, tell me to get insured because something big is coming up next year and they can shift the current work to January (when the new insurance starts), they are very transparent about cost, explain why things are needed. I really appreciate that. They even told me that the pain I experience can go away without any major intervention if I really started to floss daily, it worked indeed.
Similar stories exist for garages (the place where they fix your car).
I have a bad experience with night guards and it seems to be something dentists like to prescribe unfortunately. I got one as I had pain in one tooth and it was due to grinding and closing my mouth hard in the nights.
Once I started with the night guard I got even more pain and after a month or two my tooth cracked and had to be repaired.
As there is even less space (as you have the plastic stuff between your teeth now) it seems you press even harder which damages the teeth even more. Maybe against light grinding movement it can help, but against pressing your teeth hard together at night it does definitely not help.
The best advice I got was to remind yourself at night when going to bed (and during the night when you notice it) to open your mouth a little (still with the lips closed) so that the teeth do not touch. It's a habit thing. I also noticed I grinded/pressed my jaws together more if I went to bed late.
Maybe the pressing the tongue against the palate and practicing proper tongue posture (so called mewing) isn't without merit. The force of the tongue counteracts the jaw muscles.
Similar. I saw a dentist in SoCal when I was visiting my family (I live in the UK) and I was under some misguided impression dentistry was better in the US. Very fancy office, took colour X-rays, then told me I needed all 6 of my fillings redone and a mouth solution to protect my gums. Total amount around 3k.
I decided just to go see my local UK dentist. Shabby office, black and white x-rays. They said all my fillings were perfectly fine and showed me on the X-ray what they look at. They also told me the gum wash (which cost $150) was unnecessary.
That was 6 years ago and I haven’t had any issues with my teeth.
My dentist had a Harley Street branch, they were expensive even for a routine check up, but they were the best I ever had, honest, didnt try to push additional treatments on to you, could discuss different treatments and they would explain the pro's and con's of the different treatments. They knew I didnt mind spending money on my teeth and it was out of my pocket not insurance schemes, but they were perfectly frank and honest which was a rarity and much valued quality.
There was no waiting around in waiting rooms, it was a top notch service in every way.
My only concern which I found out recently, was the increased used of xrays to check the teeth can increase the incidence of thyroid cancer.
Another dentist I knew who wrote their own software even said my dentist was expensive.
There are plenty of honest dentists in the Bay Area (and America). If you're well informed, it's easy to tell based on a combination of Yelp reviews and what they recommend when you come in for an exam. Most of them only take higher paying PPO insurance, or don't take insurance at all (well, they're out of network).
From personal experience I need a regular cleaning every year and since I'm not cheaping out anymore on this as I did as student my teeth related health problems went to 0. I think it is useful if you aren't that disciplined with taking care of it yourself. I forget to floss every other time or simply forget to brush at times when I sit at a longer coding session and might eat during it but then forget to brush teeth afterwards. Procedure always removes plenty of scale/tartar.
Over 2-3 years, which isn't insignificant, and does suggest cleanings can be done less frequently, but it isn't particularly long term.
I'm curious if that still holds over say 5 years. And how does it intersect with other practices. For example are people who don't floss religiously more likely to benefit from more frequent cleanings, etc.
The first one is about just 1 tooth they found in a pool of 1000 extracted teeth. The second one says "there was a high association between gingivitis and plaque status with calculus accumulation" in the abstract, thus contradicting your earlier comment.
I also grind me teeth. One dentist recommended me a guard. Just really don't like the idea of sleeping with plastics in my mouth 8 hours a day. What type do you have?
I had one dentist put some kind of lacquer type of thing on my molars (so that this material is ground down instead). But I've never been able to find another dentist that does it
Maybe somebody knows what this procedure is called?
yeah, looks like that's it. It's a bit uncomfortable to chew the first few days but I'm guessing it does the trick. Maybe it's suboptimal for teeth grinding? But sleeping with a guard sounds way more of a hassle
It is also one of the most heavily sought after physician specialities for PE roll-up. Consolidation of back office functions and technology really drives cost savings as there is little variation between treatments, consolidated purchasing power with supplies and, to your point, a lot of add-on opportunities to upsell patients.
My story is only about my doctor wanting to do additional x-rays because I had new insurance. She saw it as a way to get paid and I was already tired of getting offered another service at every visit. I told the practice I didn’t want another set of x-rays 6 months after my last when my insurance allows every year just because I had new insurance. You would have thought I had offended them, hygienist, front office and dentist all tried to change my mind.
I am very suspicious of dentists; I recently went to one because an old filling fell out and suddenly, they wanted to do tons of new fillings. I had only 1 visible cavity, but the x-ray showed some decay on the sides of the teeth of others. I had the visible cavity filled and booked to do the rest, but I cancelled it. With the new filling I'm having mild discomfort that comes and goes, but I think that's mostly because I hate how fillings feel. I am still procrastinating on getting a second opinion. The thing is that fillings eventually will fail after 10-20 years, so they are not only getting that business up front they are setting up a future revenue stream. It's hard to know who to trust, even from highly rated dentists.
> his pay wasn’t dependent on high dollar procedure to make enough to keep a practice open
> I miss that guy. I’ve been suspicious of dentists ever since and look for signs.
Now you can imagine how the avg person sees the cloud spaghetti coming out of a trendy boutique - being informed their 'perfectly fine' BSD box and ZFS setup needs to become a latent chain of 900ms microservices.
Some cases it is the play, but often it's RDD from new hires or grifters.
I saw them for awhile and we got friendly. He was a younger guy and told me that he was probably one of the few honest dentists in the area because his pay wasn’t dependent on high dollar procedure to make enough to keep a practice open. Apparently, unlike medical insurance, dental insurance pays pittance for most things, so upselling procedures is how dentists really make money, usually.
Best dentist I ever had. Rarely did I need more than regularly scheduled cleanings and when I did he always started with the least invasive options (I grind my teeth in my sleep and before I realized it and got a guard there were complications)
I miss that guy. I’ve been suspicious of dentists ever since and look for signs.