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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

#221

Post by grogenaut »

ilc wrote: post #81
cj wrote: post #18

This reminds me of when I went to a dentist in SF who told me I needed to have my wisdom teeth out. I did the initial exam, and then hesitated when it came to booking the procedure. The dentist noticed my hesitation, and said something along the lines of "And after the surgery, don't forget we'll also prescribe really great pain medication!" 10 years later my new dentist says the wisdom teeth are fine and to leave th…

Odd, my dentist's hygenist complains that people who have their wisdom teeth suck at taking care of them in general. Mine got pulled for good reason. They were severely impacted, and pushing other teeth out of alignment. (I can still feel that I have out of alignment teeth in the far back of my mouth.) Not everyone should "keep their wisdom teeth." Sometimes... they gotta go.

I got them out because I'd randomly get a dorrito or something stuck right inside the gum causing them to bleed and be messed up for a week, about 4 times a year.

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

#222

Post by Aloisius »

belter wrote: post #59
dopylitty wrote: post #30

I looked into this "ClearChoice" company and unsurprisingly it's private equity owned through a chain of sketchy intermediaries. If you're having any sort of medical or other work done make sure the company is not PE owned or affiliated. The best way to check that I've found is to look for press releases. In this case there's a press release from 2020[0] about "The Aspen Group" acquiring ClearChoice. The Aspen Group…

Is there a case where a private equity organization has been proven not to be shady? Would love some examples. "Warren Buffett: Private Equity Firms Are Typically Very Dishonest" - https://youtu.be/r3_41Whvr1I

While I have no particular love of private equity firms, Buffett didn't actually say that in that video.

The closest thing he said was that he had seen a number of proposals from private equity funds where the returns were not calculated in a way he would consider honest.

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

#223

Post by evilduck »

cj wrote: post #18

This reminds me of when I went to a dentist in SF who told me I needed to have my wisdom teeth out. I did the initial exam, and then hesitated when it came to booking the procedure. The dentist noticed my hesitation, and said something along the lines of "And after the surgery, don't forget we'll also prescribe really great pain medication!" 10 years later my new dentist says the wisdom teeth are fine and to leave th…

Starting from my mid teens, I've had around a half dozen dentists tell me that I should get my wisdom teeth removed without me reporting any problems or having any negative side effects from them. I've declined to have them removed every time and I'm still sporting four healthy wisdom teeth into my 40's which now is decades of dentists negligently telling me to get them pulled for their own profit.

My family practice doctor has never recommended that I get a pinky finger removed, I don't understand why dentists recommend removing perfectly functional and healthy body parts unsolicited. At this point I just use it as a metric of the dentist's trustworthiness.

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

#224

Post by evilduck »

josefresco wrote: post #176
cj wrote: post #18

This reminds me of when I went to a dentist in SF who told me I needed to have my wisdom teeth out. I did the initial exam, and then hesitated when it came to booking the procedure. The dentist noticed my hesitation, and said something along the lines of "And after the surgery, don't forget we'll also prescribe really great pain medication!" 10 years later my new dentist says the wisdom teeth are fine and to leave th…

> 10 years later my new dentist says the wisdom teeth You got lucky. Pretty much every wisdom tooth consultation goes like this "they might grow in ok, but they might not and that will cause other issues".

"and so will will wait until evidence for one of those other issues is observable." said no dentist ever.

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

#225

Post by Workaccount2 »

gruez wrote: post #211
_1tem wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_equity "Private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering "Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money obtained from illicit activities such as [...]" Seems like I'm using the terms properly, and you're trying to inject extra connotations. What you're…

Everyone at the table understood what was meant by "private equity", the term has entered common parlance. Pulling out the dictionary just makes the "whoosh" sound even louder.

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

#227

Post by xyst »

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…

Do they have a nice office because of a well tuned operation/business; or is it because they were bought out by private equity or operate under a national chain?

Logically, it makes sense. More money spent to make it give the appearance of “higher quality” services; thus need to push unnecessary studies and work. But I took a look at my previous dentists, and noticed a pattern between PE/national dentists chains and high pressure sales tactics.

It was only a sample of 5 dentists though. So could be an anomaly. But coincidentally lines up with PE buying up vet offices all around the country and those vet offices pushing many services to customers or changing prices.

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

#228

Post by Aloisius »

dopylitty wrote: post #103
belter wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a case where a private equity organization has been proven not to be shady? Would love some examples. "Warren Buffett: Private Equity Firms Are Typically Very Dishonest" - https://youtu.be/r3_41Whvr1I

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…

Mm. VCs are PE firms.

Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, Lightspeed Ventures, etc. are all in the PEI 300.

PE is a bit more than just firms doing buyouts.

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

#229

Post by buffalobuffalo »

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…

I guess that's objectively worse since it results in false negatives as opposed to false positives. But personally I think it stings a bit more to get tricked into procedures you don't actually need.

It's genuinely hard to identify dishonest practitioners. I think the best solution might be to convince the insurance companies to pay for second opinions. And then only to pay for the procedure if the two diagnoses agree. But I guess that's a tall ask.

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

#230

Post by ryanisnan »

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 have had very similar experiences, and have come to the same conclusion.
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