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Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

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Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#121

Post by malfist »

joshowar wrote: post #66
donatj wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a new dentist for a broken filling and they tried to tell me I had 14 cavities and set me down with a finance person to set up a payment plan for how I was going to pay for them over the next 5 years. I went to a second dentist, they fixed the broken filling and said my teeth were otherwise fine. I have the paperwork to back this up. I’d been seeing another dentist for a while and he suddenly wanted to crow…

Its complicated. Technically speaking, if there's any decay in your teeth, that's a cavity. The deeper it is, the faster it'll get worse. When you want to get that filling though, is a judgement call that a lot of dentists make for you sadly. Is it best to go ahead and get those fillings now? Probably, as far as your dental health is concerned. Can it be delayed though and done later? Almost certainly. Just a bigger…

It's not that cut and dry. Just because you have a small carie doesn't mean it's only going to get worse. That's the reason for fluoride in our water, in our toothpaste and in the wax the dentists applies at the end of your cleaning (that for some reason, insurance never wants to pay for).

Fluoride treatments and good dental hygiene can reverse carries. Carries should only be treated if they're large, or if they're still growing after discovery and alerting the patient.

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#122

Post by JRabo »

> You're reading this in a year that starts with "2" so the only possible starting point is Google.

LOL. Seriously? Google the biggest known data whore, worst privacy invader on the Internet, whoring personal data out to any john willing to pay. Yeah. The year starts with 2 and Goog has been pimping your data for 23 years now and people still haven't learned they are not your friend.

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#123

Post by throwaway0a5e »

matsemann wrote: post #12

Why are dentists so scammy? In Norway I've seen documentaries about them sending the same people to multiple dentists, and some of them receive wildly different advice. Some of that can be ascribed to some being in the school of pro-active, so they want to fix your teeth at the first glance of issues. But in the end, most of the things being quoted were unnecessary. They all seemed very intent on removing wisdom teet…

> Why are dentists so scammy?

Because everyone is and you can generally afford it when cheaper professionals do it and don't know when expensive ones (doctor, lawyer, etc) do it.

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#124

Post by mindslight »

ceejayoz wrote: post #103
lupire wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2013. So they never got punished?

"Kool Smiles to pay $23.9 million" sounds like they're being punished? They typically settle and sometimes pay a fine. https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2015/ag-schneiderman-announc... I suspect they still make more profit than they lose in fines.

Having an unexpected cost and thereby not making a profit isn't actually a punishment - it makes the risk calculus a tame "I probably won't get caught", while the expected value remains positive. I realize I'm criticizing our entire enforcement philosophy for white collar crime here. But still, unless there are actual routine-disrupting punishments like jail time for violating basic professional responsibilities, we would expect unethical behavior to just continue increasing.

And this goes double for setups to make such violations "nobody's fault" like the creation of perverse incentive structures. In the context of blue collar crime, that's called a "conspiracy".

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#125

Post by [deleted] »

joshowar wrote: post #66
donatj wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a new dentist for a broken filling and they tried to tell me I had 14 cavities and set me down with a finance person to set up a payment plan for how I was going to pay for them over the next 5 years. I went to a second dentist, they fixed the broken filling and said my teeth were otherwise fine. I have the paperwork to back this up. I’d been seeing another dentist for a while and he suddenly wanted to crow…

Its complicated. Technically speaking, if there's any decay in your teeth, that's a cavity. The deeper it is, the faster it'll get worse. When you want to get that filling though, is a judgement call that a lot of dentists make for you sadly. Is it best to go ahead and get those fillings now? Probably, as far as your dental health is concerned. Can it be delayed though and done later? Almost certainly. Just a bigger…

[deleted]

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#126

Post by [deleted] »

sueders101 wrote: post #55
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dentists don’t remove wisdom teeth, they just refer you to an oral surgeon. The problem with wisdom teeth is that they increase maintenance requirements, it’s hard to clean back there and they can affect adjacent teeth if they do go bad. So I get why many dentists default suggest to remove them (I still have mine but recently started running into problems at 47).

I had a wisdom tooth removed by a dentist within the last 5 years. This was in the United States, for what it’s worth.

[deleted]

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#127

Post by adolph »

jnovek wrote: post #40

“ Medicine has become a three-way negotiation between you, your doctor, and The Algorithm.” This characterization makes it sound like a good thing. In reality, the doctor’s responsibility is being pushed to the patient because they are overbooked in the name of economic efficiency. As a patient with complex, non-specific medical condition, I can tell you how miserable this is. I can’t count on doctors _at all_ to mov…

> In reality, the doctor’s responsibility is being pushed to the patient

In reality, your choice is your responsibility. Even if one could delegate medical power of attorney to a health care provider, it would be unethical for them to hold a dual role.

Chronic conditions that are not well characterized and addressed by medicine are awful and as you said are a combined burden: the condition in of itself and the effort necessary to address the condition. The science and practice cannot progress fast enough to address the long tail of rare disease.

Informed consent is a principle in medical ethics and medical law that a patient should have sufficient information before making their own free decisions about their medical care. A healthcare provider is often held to have a responsibility to ensure that the consent that a patient gives is informed, and informed consent can apply to a health care intervention on a person, conducting some form of research on a person, or for disclosing a person's information. Informed consent is, in fact, a fundamental principle in the field of health protection, obviously wanting to mark the very close and unavoidable connection between the need for consent and the inviolability of the right to health.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#128

Post by ironmagma »

salsadip wrote: post #119
gtirloni wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gatekeepers that block access to potential treatment pathways until you can convince them it’s worth a try. You assume they actually know what needs to be done. In my experience, you can see they don't have a clue and aren't willing to do research to learn. They just hand out their usual prescriptions, etc and sometimes hope an exam will give them an obvious answer. On top of that, most doctors only have a very nar…

I‘m really not trying to sound snarky, but - is this the supposedly high quality treatment that U.S. citizens get that is so much more expensive as opposed to the „socialized“ insurance we get in Europe that is cheaper for everybody and supposedly therefore not as good/cutting edge?

Depends on which doctor you are going to. We have some of the world’s best doctors but they might be in hospitals or doing a concierge service. You get what you pay for.

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#129

Post by brimble »

jnovek wrote: post #40

“ Medicine has become a three-way negotiation between you, your doctor, and The Algorithm.” This characterization makes it sound like a good thing. In reality, the doctor’s responsibility is being pushed to the patient because they are overbooked in the name of economic efficiency. As a patient with complex, non-specific medical condition, I can tell you how miserable this is. I can’t count on doctors _at all_ to mov…

Can confirm. They paint people who google symptoms as kooks or as annoying, but you have to if you ever want to get an actual diagnosis and treatment, because doctors and hospitals are, quite often, worse than Google at figuring out WTF is wrong.

Do your best not to end up in a hospital without an advocate (friend, relative) watching out for you. They'll fail to treat you at best, then discharge you with a shrug and a huge bill; and they'll kill you with mistakes, at worst.

Re: Google almost convinced me to spend $400 on useless laser treatments

#130

Post by mort96 »

petesergeant wrote: post #26
notamy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whether or not to drop $400 is not a "high-stakes medical decision". This just feels out-of-touch. $400 on a medical decision is a MASSIVE choice for many people -- it could be the difference between whether not they eat.

I guess I tend to consider "high-stakes" in the context of medicine to mean life-or-death, and not prophylactic pre-gingivitis treatments.

Ok it's not life or death so it's not high-stakes to you, but it's about whether to get treatment to prevent your teeth from falling out. Whether or not to ignore your doctor's suggested treatment for that is certainly something I'd consider high stakes.
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