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A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

arstechnica.com

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Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#191

Post by bahama_mama »

Usually a good idea to get a second opinion. I had a major pain in one of my teeth a few years ago. I went to a dentist, they had diagnosis in 20 minutes: the tooth is broken, needs to be extracted and implant was recommended.

Somehow I got into other dentist through my friend recommendation. They referred me to their endodontist and they said there is no break in tooth bone. After doing root canal and crown, a few years later I'm happy with having my biological tooth and crown with zero pain and saved a good few grands.

Always get a second opinion.

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#192

Post by benlivengood »

loocsinus wrote: post #97

I am a dentist. The article and some of the comments here make me sad. sorry for the bad apples in my profession. I am sure most of the dentists are honest. If you have questions about procedures you don't understand, you can ask me.

How frequently is jaw surgery required to fix bite issues? And if chewing and biting food are painless and not too cumbersome, how likely is the situation to devolve over time to the place that surgery becomes necessary?

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#193

Post by alistairSH »

sroussey wrote: post #178
jvanderbot wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While in LA, we shopped around for dentists. Several of the smaller places took advantage of the fact we had good insurance and insisted they had found several cavities (11 in once case). Having never / rarely had cavities, we were skeptical and tried other places. Since moving back to MN, where lack of insurance is less common, we do not have this problem. The only remaining scam is xrays.

X-rays are the universal scam. Even the government recommends against them for the last decade at least.

I haven’t heard this… what’s the scam? They don’t show anything they isn’t visible with the eye?

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#194

Post by burningChrome »

rootusrootus wrote: post #175
hansonkd wrote: post #31

This might sound stupid but I refuse to go to dentists that have "too nice" of an office. Over the years I have lived in several places and had a variety of dentists and one common theme that sticks with me, the nicer and higher tech the office is, the more procedures they are going to recommend you. They need to pay for the equipment and office somehow. I've had one dentist say I need 3 cavities filled. That I neede…

I think there is some merit to that idea. It is not perfect, but it is a potential red flag. I experienced something similar a couple weeks ago when I went to a local dermatologist for a skin cancer screening. The office was gorgeous. Top of the line everything, spacious, just incredible. When the doctor came in, he was a whirlwind - he glanced at my back, the fronts of my arms, and my face ... then pronounced me in…

>> He billed my insurance just under $300 for an exam that took under 5 minutes.

This is really common in health care.

I injured my shoulder during hockey and went to the ER. The ER nurse told me to go to a specialty clinic that had offices all over town. Told me to bring a book since they do walk ins and it will be a while before I was seen. Brought a book and checked in. Three hours later, they took me back. I waited for about ten minutes and then the doctor came in.

Same thing. He asked me to raise my arm in several different directions and then announced, "Keep taking your anti-inflams, be about 6-8 weeks before it heals" and walks out. On his way out he kind of hollered back, "And do some stretching so you don't lose your range of motion!"

My insurance got billed $600 for a 2 min appointment.

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#195

Post by Suppafly »

toast0 wrote: post #151
Suppafly wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'd get a professional teeth cleaning every 3 months if my insurance covered Same, especially if I could get just a cleaning and not deal with the exam. I've often thought it'd be nice to be able to just pop in and get them professionally cleaned without the whole dental appointment around the cleaning.

Ask your dentist about it. This is something they can do. Typical insurance covers an exam and cleaning 2x a year, so you'd pay for the other 2 cleanings (maybe with a discount), but they can absolutely do a cleaning with no exam, or usually just an unbilled quick look if the dentist has a minute. While cleaning your teeth, obvious problems will be obvious, and non-obvious problems can wait until the next exam. At 3x…

>Insurance companies are starting to at least 6 months between exams, rather than covering two per year.

Medical insurance has always been like that, which is annoying when you have kids that need them for school and activities because they sometimes want them to be dated within a certain timeframe. Everytime you are off a week or two, it pushes the appointment further and further from the 6 months, by the time your kid is in their teens, the 6 months have lapped each other.

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#196

Post by brightball »

hansonkd wrote: post #31

This might sound stupid but I refuse to go to dentists that have "too nice" of an office. Over the years I have lived in several places and had a variety of dentists and one common theme that sticks with me, the nicer and higher tech the office is, the more procedures they are going to recommend you. They need to pay for the equipment and office somehow. I've had one dentist say I need 3 cavities filled. That I neede…

My dad is a dentist and he recommended a guy in a city near me. My wife and I both went there for a few years and never had any issues.

The office was sold to a new, younger dentist...oddly enough a guy I knew from college years before. From that point forward, we both had regular cavities that needed to be filled. Eventually, we found another place and had a similar experience to yours: everything was fine.

I always wonder if it's something that has changed in how they are being trained? It's too consistent of a problem for me to believe that all of these dentists are just sleezy. It feels like something has changed in the educational experience to make them believe that these procedures are needed or justified.

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#197

Post by triceratops »

lupusreal wrote: post #127
xyclos wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was 12, I was scheduled by my regular dentist to have two cavities filled. It was the first time I had anything negative in a dental checkup. We were very poor, so my dad was pissed that it was going to be almost $400 to get them filled. He found a different dentist that was supposed to be a bit cheaper, and I went to that one instead. He was shocked to hear that I had been scheduled for two fillings. Since I…

> I fear there's not really a good way to vet Dentists effectively since most people probably never find out that they've been scammed for years. I'd love to learn some new strategies though. It's something the government should be doing; running sting operations against dentists with compliants against them. Unfortunately, dentists and prosecutors are in the same social circles.

> dentists and prosecutors are in the same social circles

What? Are there dentist/prosecutor cocktail parties us software grunts are missing out on?

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#198

Post by Suppafly »

sk11001 wrote: post #131
Suppafly wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the sweet spot is a somewhat younger dentist that has their own office with a few exam rooms, and avoid the businesses that are multiple dentists. I say somewhat younger because solo dentists seem to mostly buy their equipment once, presumably mortgaging it over decades, and then retire when it's mostly used up. So a younger one is going to have the technical advantages that the older ones don't. I much prefe…

The logic is flimsy - having the newer equipment also means looking for reasons to use it to justify the cost so these dentists will often recommend expensive onlays instead of fillings for example.

Or your logic is flimsy. Equipment, as far as I can tell, is mostly bought once and then mortgaged over the lifetime of the practice, so they are presumably paying the same regardless. Newer dentists just have newer, and nicer, equipment. I go to a newer dentist and have never been recommended onlays. It's like any profession, some people are honest and some aren't.

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#199

Post by EasyMark »

hansonkd wrote: post #31

This might sound stupid but I refuse to go to dentists that have "too nice" of an office. Over the years I have lived in several places and had a variety of dentists and one common theme that sticks with me, the nicer and higher tech the office is, the more procedures they are going to recommend you. They need to pay for the equipment and office somehow. I've had one dentist say I need 3 cavities filled. That I neede…

I'm the same way with opticians. I'm like I don't need all these fancy surroundings. Just check out my eyes and give me a prescription, I don't need a coffee shop or gorgeous lighting in a ritzy part of town. Strip mall opticians are fine. Just use common sense and get second opinions if something seems off.

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#200

Post by _1tem »

gruez wrote: post #180
dopylitty wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There might be one case somewhere that could be found where a firm that technically counts as PE isn't shady but in general the very idea of private equity is shady so it follows that all the PE firms would be shady also. The point of PE isn't to run sustainable businesses that provide quality products and services for customers while treating their employees well. The point is to rapidly suck all the value out of bu…

>The point of PE isn't to run sustainable businesses that provide quality products and services for customers while treating their employees well. The point is to rapidly suck all the value out of businesses by loading them up with debt, breaking laws, mistreating customers, and exploiting employees. What happens to the carcass of the business or to the customers and employees whose lives have been destroyed doesn't…

No. That is not how language works. "Money laundering" does not mean putting paper bills into a washing machine. "Private equity" firms are a specific business structure besides the literal meaning.
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