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Why Dentistry Is Separate from Medicine

theatlantic.com

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Re: Why Dentistry Is Separate from Medicine

#111

Post by deong »

chimeracoder wrote: post #69
sjwright wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My bill for removing my wisdom teeth came to nearly $12K Seriously? You could fly to Thailand or central Europe and get your dental work performed there for a fraction of the price. You could probably fly business class, stay at a swanky hotel, and absorb the loss of two weeks work and still come out ahead. I'm serious. Dental tourism is a thing. I was an accidental dental tourist a few years ago while travelling a…

> Your bill seems excessive even by affluent Australian standards. I had four wisdom teeth removed – one of them impacted, requiring a dental surgeon – and the total cost was under $3k AUD at my local dentist. I bet it only "cost" $12k because it was covered by insurance rather than priced by the free market. It's expensive by US standards as well. In NYC, which is a high COL area, the price I've seen quoted is aroun…

I'm going next week to have one removed, and it's about $500, plus some extra costs that are covered by my medical insurance rather than the dental insurance whose deductible I haven't hit yet.

Re: Why Dentistry Is Separate from Medicine

#112

Post by brianwawok »

nervousvarun wrote: post #46
brianwawok wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is cost scale. Get cancer? That could be a million dollars in treatment. You need insurance. Get a bad tooth? Maybe 3k max to replace it with a bridge or similar. The idea is most people can scrouge up 3k but not a million bucks.

That may be true as to why the insurance is separated, but unfortunately the idea that most people can scrounge up 3K is not accurate (at least in the U.S.). Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2016/10/...

Except that if you can't afford 3k, you also can't afford $600 a year for dental insurance.

Re: Why Dentistry Is Separate from Medicine

#113

Post by dsego »

feld wrote: post #21

Dental/oral health is crucial. You can die from dental problems. I will never understand why the entire dental industry is treated as if it is cosmetic or non-essential. Stress to your immune system and failure of major organs is not taken seriously, but it is a very real risk.

Recently there was a case of a woman having to undergo brain surgery after bacteria from an untreated tooth attacked her brain. She's now learning to walk again.

badly translated article https://translate.google.hr/translate?sl=hr&tl=en&js=y&prev=...

Re: Why Dentistry Is Separate from Medicine

#114

Post by AnthonyMouse »

deong wrote: post #110
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The true problem you're identifying is poverty. Dental care isn't outrageously expensive. It doesn't have huge margins or vast inefficiency. The reason people can't afford it is because they're poor . No bureaucratic solution involving government-subsidized dental services is going to produce a better outcome than taking the same money and giving it to those people in cash.

The problem is that poor people need cash for lots of things. If you're poor enough that you can't go to the dentist, you're poor enough to be hurting in any number of ways. If we give you $500 and say, "now this is for the dentist -- save it in case you need it", they're quite rightly going to tell you to fuck off and go buy food and gas for the car to get to work. And then when they need a dentist six months later,…

> The problem is that poor people need cash for lots of things.

That isn't the problem, it's the reason why giving them cash is better. Because if they can't afford to put gas in their car to get to work, using that money will keep them from borrowing it from the credit card company. And then in six months they'll still have $500 less credit card debt plus having not paid 25% APR for six months.

Re: Why Dentistry Is Separate from Medicine

#115

Post by [deleted] »

deong wrote: post #110
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The true problem you're identifying is poverty. Dental care isn't outrageously expensive. It doesn't have huge margins or vast inefficiency. The reason people can't afford it is because they're poor . No bureaucratic solution involving government-subsidized dental services is going to produce a better outcome than taking the same money and giving it to those people in cash.

The problem is that poor people need cash for lots of things. If you're poor enough that you can't go to the dentist, you're poor enough to be hurting in any number of ways. If we give you $500 and say, "now this is for the dentist -- save it in case you need it", they're quite rightly going to tell you to fuck off and go buy food and gas for the car to get to work. And then when they need a dentist six months later,…

[deleted]

Re: Why Dentistry Is Separate from Medicine

#116

Post by mikeash »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #71
morganvachon wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea is most people can scrouge up 3k but not a million bucks. The reality is far from that, though. Roughly a third of the citizens of the US would have to go into debt to secure $3K on the spot, they don't just have that laying around in the bank. Doing so could easily cause a downward spiral where one would have to choose between basic necessities or moving back in with family for months or even years to pay…

> Roughly a third of the citizens of the US would have to go into debt to secure $3K on the spot, they don't just have that laying around in the bank. That doesn't change the nature of the problem. With catastrophic events, one person in 250 will incur a million dollar expense in a given year, so everyone pays four thousand dollars a year for insurance and that person gets covered. With dentistry, one person in five…

I really doubt that multi-thousand-dollar dental events are as common as once every five years.

Insurance doesn't have to be for things where most people will never incur the expense. The average time between car accidents in the US, for example, is a bit over a decade, yet car insurance is very much a thing (and not just the legally mandated liability insurance, either).

Re: Why Dentistry Is Separate from Medicine

#117

Post by merqurio »

I just saw this week an endocarditis due to the lack of dental hygiene. None of us was properly trained to evaluate if the patients​ teeth were ok. Shame. Dental health is not even available in lot of public health system like the Spainish one. I'll never understand why it's treated differently.

Re: Why Dentistry Is Separate from Medicine

#118

Post by chimeracoder »

deong wrote: post #111
chimeracoder wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your bill seems excessive even by affluent Australian standards. I had four wisdom teeth removed – one of them impacted, requiring a dental surgeon – and the total cost was under $3k AUD at my local dentist. I bet it only "cost" $12k because it was covered by insurance rather than priced by the free market. It's expensive by US standards as well. In NYC, which is a high COL area, the price I've seen quoted is aroun…

I'm going next week to have one removed, and it's about $500, plus some extra costs that are covered by my medical insurance rather than the dental insurance whose deductible I haven't hit yet.

> I'm going next week to have one removed, and it's about $500, plus some extra costs that are covered by my medical insurance rather than the dental insurance whose deductible I haven't hit yet.

Yeah, I'm quoting a lower end of the range, but the point is that OP was literally paying more than ten times that amount.

Re: Why Dentistry Is Separate from Medicine

#119

Post by BecuzYoullLive8 »

mtdewcmu wrote: post #35

The real question is not why is dentistry kept separate from medicine. The real question is why dental insurance is treated like a luxury, compared to regular health insurance. The problem is that so many people are unable to afford dentistry, because of poor or no coverage.

Because our culture does not allow for providing a decent quality of life to everyone.

I grew up poor, in one of the reddest of red states. I've been party to literally dozens of arguments, family, friends, coworkers, in the grocery store between randos, didn't matter who... the local cultural meme is: "You don't need teeth/glasses/asthma meds/whatever to live.". "Be glad you're not dead." is usually what follows. Poor, broken, but "alive".

It isn't generally available to people with no money, so they build an emotional avoidance mechanism. A "hard living" mentality. Stoicism run amok.

Politicians and neo-liberal economic policy take advantage of this.

The experience may be subhuman in the figurative sense, but in a literal sense "you'll live."

Re: Why Dentistry Is Separate from Medicine

#120

Post by fatbob »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #101
maxerickson wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The margins are healthy enough that many dentists work 4 days a week while earning a fantastic living.

Salary isn't margin, it's cost. You have to pay the market rate to convince your dentist to be a dentist instead of a psychiatrist or lawyer or bank manager. What are you proposing, price controls? Then what do you do when your dentist quits to become a real estate broker?

Maybe the occupational licensing is too onerous? I'm sure that you can get cheaper dental treatment abroad.
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