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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

#281

Post by mathewsanders »

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 saw an ENT for the first time earlier this year and was shocked that each visit (less than 5 mins) got billed at around $1500 per visit.

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

#282

Post by codingwagie »

result2vino wrote: post #129
codingwagie wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge amount of fraud in the dental space, even in places like NYC.

> even in places like NYC would be curious to hear why this specifically surprises you. Is NYC your idea of a gold standard for honesty?

Its just a world class city. so if its happening here, its happening everywhere

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

#283

Post by loocsinus »

benlivengood wrote: post #192
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?

jaw surgery is needed if the malocclusion is due to skeletal issue. meaning braces alone would not be enough to fix the bite.

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

#284

Post by loocsinus »

dennis_jeeves2 wrote: post #239
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.

> I am sure most of the dentists are honest. Honest but incompetent. For example most wisdom tooth removals are not necessary, but because (I think) it was taught at dental school most would recommend it. To be fair this is not a dentists' only problem, it's true for every profession.

they didn't teach us to remove every wisdom teeth in dental school. also your assertion that "most wisdom teeth removal are not necessary" does not fit my observations.

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

#285

Post by fma »

>>Brian Jackson, a former academy president and implant specialist in New York, said he believed dentists are too ethical and patients are too smart to be pressured by private equity owners “who will never see a patient.

Dentists are too ethical...lol ok. Comical.

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

#286

Post by aanet »

dennis_jeeves2 wrote: post #244
aanet wrote: post #209

A serious question: Do Dentists not have to swear by the Hippocratic Oath?? Not that swearing by the Oath implies that all dentists, by association, will indeed be honest... Or the opposite, tbh. Just curious. I always found it (still find it) rather curious that the United States, despite being such an advanced nation / economy with pockets of excellence in medicine care, still has such crumbling, disparate and high…

How does an oath matter, really? Any oath is a sham show of allegiance/sincerity to some cause.

It doesn't, really, tbh... One just feels that Doctors would offer the care that starts with "do no harm".

And I say this as the child of two Doctors from developing countries who spent their ~50 year working lives serving under-served communities, with little to no material benefit to themselves.

IMHO the whole medical + healthcare industry in the US is so incredibly complex with so many misaligned incentives -- mostly away from the end user/consumer -- that the various attempts to reform the system have themselves have created their own set of perverse incentives. Not to say that medical care in the US isn't top-notch... It indeed is, its just that the comparative bang-for-the-buck in the US is much less than in other developed economies (e.g. western europe, canada, etc.).

Which is why I when I see Doctors / labs / hospitals 'scamming' patients in various ways, it feels like every player is only optimizing (locally!) for themselves than for the end user. Just so utterly demoralizing...

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

#287

Post by bombarolo »

sirspacey wrote: post #273
mmooss wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we find significantly fewer overtreatment recommendations for patients with higher socio-economic status compared with lower socio-economic status for standard visits Very interesting: You'd think they'd go for the deeper pockets, but something overrides that.

This risk of being found out Higher socio-economic status = smaller local community

… better lawyers

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

#288

Post by gruez »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #225
gruez wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So you'd be fine with statements like "cyclists are assholes", or maybe even "undocumented migrants are assholes"? After all, in both cases you could argue that you're not meant to take those groups literally, only the bad elements within those groups. This is even a pretty common refrain by some. ie. "oh I don't hate all migrants, just the ones that's causing trouble". Where do you draw the line between "it's fine to seemingly bash an entire group of people because everyone knows you're not literally bashing the entire group" and "false rhetoric"?

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

#289

Post by Scoundreller »

natebc wrote: post #260
cinntaile wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why they gave you antibiotics though?

Open head wound from bumping it on public transit?

The evidence base for general usage of antibiotic prophylaxis in open “uncontaminated” wounds in otherwise healthy people ain’t great.

Depends on what kind of antibiotics they’re talking about, exact location/depth, their health status and what you’d call “uncontaminated” or not. Not really enough info to judge.

Sure, public transit isn’t “clean”, but it’s going to be cleaner than the average human/animal bite or fall into a manure pile.

Sure you’ll hear case reports from the people that didn’t get antibiotics and had a bad outcome, but antibiotics can cause bad outcomes too, from resistance, impaired wound healing from topicals and things like C Diff. Plus added time+cost.

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

#290

Post by johnnyanmac »

knowitnone wrote: post #72
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #2

I went to a new dentist when I was 18 because my other dentist was unavailable. He declares that I have two cavities and fills one, but doesn't use enough anesthetic. Given my bad exp with him I went back to my other dentist who's flabbergasted that there was supposedly a cavity on the other tooth. No sign of any decay. These kind of experiences are why I try to vet a new dentist very hard before trusting them, even…

you must have loads of money to be going around getting multiple opinions

isn't that exactly what insurance is for?
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