There’s something we, collectively, have ignored for some time now. Maybe not ignored, but accepted. Accepted in a look-away type of way. I’ll never understand how we let this get this far without oversight or regulation. We even openly mock the ineffective insurance we can purchase has next to no impact on your financial pain. So I think it’s time we examine and hold up to the light an x-ray of an industry run amuck. South Florida Dentistry.
I’ve had the experience over the last, say, 20 years dealing with a particular operation. And it feels particular to our neck of the woods. With the legit fear of a defamation lawsuit, I’ll describe this place as the Jiffy Lube of cavities and root canals. It’s all about getting as many cars in the garage or butts in those seats, get them for everything you can, at the most expensive rate (while you’re being told they’ve already discounted your fees), and then making us feel like we’re family and we’re lucky they caught everything in time,
Look, there’s a whole host of ways they can get you. What they really excel at is taking what you came in for, say a cleaning, and expanding that appointment into a treatment plan. Remember, according to a 2018 article in The New York Times, medical services often have higher reimbursement rates than dental services thereby making dentistry the most expensive service in everything medical. Some insurances with the highest deductibles still come under what a dental treatment plan can cost you.
These treatment plans are ridiculous.
The last time I frequented this establishment, I naively signed my name to a $12,000 treatment plan. I went in for a cleaning and was basically told I’d die if I didn’t get this treatment. Something about a tooth/heart connection. I don’t know. And you have no one to negotiate on your behalf any and all of these possible procedures. Of course, I could’ve backed out. I should’ve dug my flip-flops in and tested their mandate. Would they kick me out? Well, conversely, if you are in real pain, there is nothing legally binding that dentists must work on you.
But four years later, I’m back in the same chair, signing my name, again, to a treatment plan costing around $11,000. I never challenged them. Would they leave me in pain if I didn’t cough up the money? For some ungodly reason, these people act as though we have upwards of tens of thousands of dollars to throw away in our mouths. Just our mouths. Like inside of a year. Yes, we’ve ignored something, and they’ll tell you it’s your teeth. And then proceed to itemize what my financial life is gonna look like for the next two years. Oh, they have payment plans. As if I ride my teeth home.
This is where it gets funky. You can participate in a car crash, severely damage your body in all the wrong places, be carted to the nearest hospital, put in your own room, be seen by doctors, nurses, and the like, dine on the okay-est of meals, drink the luke-warmest of beverages, have x-rays and MRI’s taken, get all wrapped up and bandaged, pretty much be brought back to life and with insurance, you mayyyyybe spend $1500 for their entire treatment plan. Do you receive a few rogue bills in the mail? Yes! But those fees are nothing compared to what those with the drills and the fills charge you.
Dentistry, or at least dentistry down here, is the most horrific limb of the medical tree ever conceived.
It, however, is disguised by a veneer of familial glare. But scratch or pick at just below the surface you’ll find something dark, something almost akin to a hostage situation. But your negotiator is also your captor. And when you’re in the kind of pain that blinds you, you’ll agree to any price, any payment plan, to remove said pain. That’s like charging a drowning man for a life preserver, all the while telling you it’s your fault you were in the water.
And the work can be very spotty sometimes. Although they’ll cry its user error. I’ve left appointments and their work tumbles out of my mouth. I’m talking about walking out of an outwardly reputable, award-winning office and a crown goes skidding across my kitchen table. I’ve been told I don’t need a root canal, we can just crown it. Awesome, less money. I go home, the crowned tooth starts hurting, I go back the next day, now I need the root canal STAT because there’s a huge infection in the bone. And you guessed it, they charged me almost $2000 for their mistake.
These are high-traffic establishments. They’re cattle farms. Like farmers, we were taught to trust our dentists. Never thinking we had to sell the farm to pay for a couple procedures performed. It’s so fucked that we as cattle walk into the corral thinking there’s no way these “farmers” would butcher their own. We’re supposed to be like family. Even though we can clearly see, laid out in front of us, glistening in the fluorescent lights, the instruments of our destruction.
Before I close this out, I should express the other side’s reasoning for charging so much. Searchbusinessgroup.com (yes it’s a real resource) identifies overhead costs represent 60% to 80% of patient charges. This includes many expenses such as rent, payroll, insurance, and taxes, It goes on to say, experience and specialization, skill requirement and complexity, materials and equipment. Look, I’m not saying dental practices shouldn’t turn a profit. But maybe bringing down the overall costs of the entire industry from schooling to opening an office could be a way to reduce costs.
In 2023, the financial services company Synchrony conducted a survey and disclosed that 83% of respondents would absolutely consider putting off treatment for extreme dental issues explicitly due to concerns of cost and/or financial constraints. That’s a ridiculous amount of people. Dentistry is considered a healthcare field and not necessarily a medical one. So let’s just call it a business. And as a business, if people don’t frequent it, then you lower your prices. The problem is they have us by the molars. Maybe we form a union. Maybe we lobby the right politician. What we can’t do is only leave this in my hands.
Think for a moment about your grandparents or your more elder retired parents.
Some are lucky enough to live on fixed incomes. And it’s places like this one that prey upon these incomes. They wrangle them into a cleaning schedule then pepper in a few more costly procedures and walla, there’s your year of contributing to the conveyor belt system of Jiffy Lube dentistry. They even have that little room off to the side that every car lot has where you’re railroaded into some form of financing. That’s if they already haven’t done it while you’re sitting in the chair with everyone waiting for you to sign your money away so they can work on you.
Unfortunately for your gramps and your parents, they don’t know to scroll down past the few good reviews and discover a world of the real ones, the one-star reviews that make up the majority of reviews. By just clicking on a good review profile, you’ll learn like I did, that these were actually bought and these happy customers don’t exist. Even more reprehensible, and potentially sinister is that only those 65 and over are allowed, real painkillers. Odd, isn’t it? Sounds to me they’re hooking those with disposable incomes to these habit forming pills. Any way to get them back in their chairs.
There’s something very wrong here. And in a world where medicine should help not hurt, that help should not only be medical, but financial. It should be altruistic. Listen, there’s not one service-oriented practice I’ve ever gone into where I pay $2000 every time I go. It’s preposterous. It’s grotesque. And it’s done in the daylight. Should I have cut down on the Coca-Cola and the Snickers? “Duh course”. Does that mean the children I don’t have need to suffer because their father, me, likes his coladas with a few packets worth of sugar? Their inheritance now a series of new dental chairs at my dentist’s office.
And speaking of my dentist. Or rather former dentist.
Why? Well, has your dentist ever yelled at you? Or your spouse? Yeah. To the point you have to hang up on them? Not kidding. You’re paying them thousands and thousands of dollars and when you challenge one aspect of their care, they blow up at you. They tell you you’re Monday morning quarterbacking because they missed something big. They say’ “Oh, you’re NOT a dentist?”. And “What do YOU wanna do about it.” My mouth is still aghast. And it’s still hurting.
Anyway, I called back and was supposed to speak to a manager but my dentist picked up again, this time I recorded the call. This time, I hit the record button but a voice came on saying it’s recording. The dentist heard this and changed their whole attitude. They became calm and helpful. I’ve never heard of a healthcare professional yell at the person they’re supposed to help. Good reviews can be bought. Always scroll down and read those bad ones. The truth is in the tooth putty.
Don’t let these toothy professionals bring your smile back if there’s nothing left to smile about.
