Once upon a time the AMA and ADA vehemently opposed medicare. Dentists succeeded, medical doctors did not. To this day, dentists oppose inclusion in Medicare because it would decrease how much they are paid for services even though it would greatly expand access to a vulnerable age group. Right now, dental fees are mostly unregulated and for many, unaffordable.
You'd think with all those years of school they could do some basic math and find out that more customers means more money, even if they pay less per customer.
Don't forget the millions of disabled Americans under the age of 65 who also live on Medicare, and often get less income from Social Security because of fewer working years, making Advantage Plans less affordable. Or don't qualify for many of those Advantage Plans at all due to younger age.
@@gamemeister27 the key point is they can choose their patients and deal less with annoying rejection on authorizations. dentists have an excellent lifestyle compared to your avg physician. why have an endless supply of extremely sick patients that reimburse for less compared to a consistent supply of higher paying, likely more compliant/adherent patients? business wise this is excellent, but ethically, the opposite.
And like any other health problem, if you dont take care of it and pay now, it gets worse (and more expensive) to fix later, making proper dental care unattainable for many FOREVER since the cost is always just out of reach as time goes on
Teeth are treated differently in Australia too but if you can afford dental insurance the companies aren’t as bad and do actually cover a certain number of checkups each year and major dental work. Their policies aren’t entirely works of fiction and they don’t employ swathes of non medical staff to routinely deny claims. Overwhelming majority of my electronic claims are in fact paid on the spot direct into my account and then i pay the difference to the provider, or if it’s a paper claim within 48 hours to 1 week.
It’s a meme that’s been around since Obama. He originally wanted to include dental care in the Affordable Care Act, but the ADA successfully lobbied against it.
Insurance companies have gotten chewing legally deemed a cosmetic issue, allowing them to lower the standard of care across the board. Doc Glauc is telling the truth.
I remember when they kept talking about “death panels” if US healthcare became universal. Yet people have no problem with our insurance for decades choosing if you live or die in agony because they don’t think the procedure is needed or suddenly it’s not “covered by the plan.”
As a Canadian with so-called 'universal' health care that doesn't cover dental, vision, hearing, out-patient therapies, or medication, this hits hard. These things are all covered by private insurance through employers, and many don't offer it.
In America,some of us are fighting for a universal healthcare system and we’re always told about how great the Canadian program is. At least,prescription prices. But,the way you describe it,sounds like shit. So,I have a question,if you have a chance to reply. Do you choose your own Dr. and hospital or is limited to assigned choices,like an HMO?
@@myleslong5584 Our system works well when it's well funded (which right now it isn't), and we can choose our own doctors (theoretically anyway-if we live in a place with enough doctors to choose from, and I'm not sure if we could realistically choose specialists since that's all done by referral). We don't have to worry about accidentally going out of network. Prescription drug prices are much lower, and in the case of extremely expensive medication, we can get Provincial subsidies (think thousands of dollars/year). There's a deductible based on your income. IMO it should all just be free, but as it stands, it seems like our system is better than in the US. Everything done by and MD or is free at the point of service and there are no bills. It's currently severely underfunded though, and we have a massive primary care physician and nurse shortage.
@@ashleyyyy8833 I,truly,appreciate your reply. Nothing like getting facts straight from the source,instead of only hearing what news or political information sites can tell a person. Now,that you’ve gone a bit more into detail,the system doesn’t,actually,sound that bad. In fact,it sounds pretty similar to our state-run Medicaid system,intended for low-income and the destitute. It’s a really good program as it covers the basics (Dr. visits,ER,hospitalization and surgery,if needed) completely. Medicare is not as good as there is about a 20% co-pay. For our Northern neighbors,seems like it’s either a lack of population to pay into the system or government mismanagement. The government mismanagement of our Medicare system is what we Americans have to worry about because we should have enough of a population to support it for another 50 years,at least. Politicians like to hold it over our heads,though,and they threaten to make cuts,constantly. Oh,well,I could go on but,nobody wants to read a book,right now. As I said,thank you for your response,honesty and clarity.
@@myleslong5584 The reason our system isn't well funded is because governments have been slowly chipping away at it and making unnecessary cuts. The money is there, but there are parties that want to privatize parts of it, so they underfund it so they can say 'look, public healthcare doesn't work. Guess we have to privatize it.' Only super rich Canadians actually support any type of privatization though.
“There are certain things only rich people are supposed to have, like teeth or glasses or mental health.” That last one on the list made me feel six different emotions at once and I can’t quite describe them
I just need my luxury bones cleaned! Legislature just this month approved Medicare reimburs😂ment for mental health counselors and marriage and family counselors. They’ve been right up there with luxury services😮
As a 67 year old woman on medicare (original plan) I am baffled that dental is not covered. Nor vision! Also, as a retired RN, I learned in nursing school that teeth and eyes are all legitimate parts of the human body.
T33th aid in digestion i didnt realize how much until i got them pull3d and got d3ntur3s. Sorry for the numb3r spelling everytime i spell it right i get impl4nt ads theyre annoying AF. Bad vision can lead to nasty falls and even death. Just glad my hearing is hanging in there after all these years of illness and m3ds with bad side effects.
Fun fact: In the Tudor period in England, barbers could cut hair and pull teeth. So even in the 1500s, without electricity and working plumbing, people knew that bad dental hygiene was dangerous.
New in town, I saw a dentist to get a chipped molar fixed. After "fixing" it, my jaw felt strange, and I couldn't bite down, so I went back. The dentist used a grinding tool on the tooth. Twice. Fast forward six months and an unholy toothache, and my new dentist tells me the other dude mis-diagnosed an abscess, and I needed a root canal. Having recently gotten an insurance upgrade w/ dental, I shrugged and asked if it could be done that day. New dentist blushed really hard and said, "It'll cost a grand." I shrugged again, and new dentist said, "Your insurance won't cover it, but it will pay for pulling it out." I asked why insurance wouldn't cover a root canal. The answer? "Uhh, chewing is considered cosmetic by insurance companies." (Read that again) ⬆️ That's the result of lobbyists working against patient care.
From everything I've learned... root canal is really bad for long term health. Pulling the tooth and getting a substitute (spacer,implant,etc) is much better for long term health.
@@the_channel_with_no_name No, this just simply isn't true. Depending on the extent of the infection, root canal treated teeth have a like 95% survival rate over 5 years
Dental mafia can't even touch ortho bro, he's so powerful in front of bad guys that he can cause multiple fractures for just the enjoyment of repairing it back.
While ortho is pretty crazy, what level of sadistic does it take to pull teeth out one by one? Ortho has all the power tools they want but you only get tiny power tools if you're a dentist. And you can eff with people like "You wanted strawberry? Oh, how nice. [look of intensity] You're getting cinnamon and you're going to like it."
So true, I worked (very briefly) for a health insurance provider. I told people for 8 hours a day that no, that dental or vision coverage was essentially worthless-one of the reasons I quit that position. Even the job was a scam, I had earned a license to sell health insurance to people and was excited to help people on their journey, but then the group of new recruits were herded into the cubicle farm and we saw that even the job description was a lie, we weren't selling health insurance at all- but denying claims and then trying to upsell an extra (non medical) service. It was disgusting. They tried to charge me for the training and I pointed out that they'd lied about the job-then they backed down.
Since you mentioned it in this video, now you HAVE to do vision insurance! 🤓 As a former COA, it always boggled my mind that someone with a visual acuity of 20/40 isn’t legal to drive uncorrected, but refraction and glasses aren’t covered by medical insurance.
As an OD the state of vision/ocular health coverage is just getting worse every year. I just volunteered at a Lions Club free refraction clinic where 3 OD's saw 135 patients. There were more that had to be turned away. Support your Lions Club, they do great work!
Yeah, when I finally got a job that paid well and offered vision insurance, I immediately went to the optometrist to get new glasses. They asked how old my prescription was and I said, "oh, I don't know. Eight years?" because I couldn't afford new glasses until then. They were shocked but I could see well enough with my old prescription, lol. The glasses had most of the paint peeling off the plastic parts but the glass itself held up fine. My new glasses fit more comfortably, but those old ones will still do in a pinch. I also got my first pair of sunglasses because I could splurge on the luxury of an /additional pair of glasses/ that I only wear outdoors. I have to laugh about it or it's just depressing. Vision in our society is anything but a luxury.
There was a great article in the New Yorker years ago about a woman who, against all the odds, as a single parent living in a trailer park with a disabled child, managed to get a degree, but struggled to find employment because of her horrible dental situation.
As a dental student this really hits home. You’re basically not allowed to have empathy for patients based on how the system works. You can’t imagine how awful it feels to tell your emergency patient with a painful abscess that you can’t extract their tooth because they can’t afford the fee, so they just get sent home and suffer more. The ADA is criminal, they only look out for their own kind. Edit: based on a lot of the comments made in response to this, seems like people are missing the point that I’m still a student at a school and not a private practitioner. I don’t make the prices nor the rules. I cannot just “do something for free” or else I get expelled, so yes I feel terrible when I’m not allowed to do certain things. As for when I am in practice after graduating from school, where I will be able to set prices and rules, yes I will absolutely be able to take the loss on procedures etc.
I know the feeling, it's so sad when you can't just provide them with basic care. It's a joke that we have to adhere to certain standards but they don't reflect in our work of practice. Keep going and well doen for your hard work.
Capitalism breeds innovation! There are yet so many ways to deny people necessities for life that we haven't discovered! Think about the possibilities for investors, oh my lord!
Can't you tell the person who can't afford the fee that they can pay in rates? Like I can't afford $10000 right now but I'd be willing to pay $100 a month over 100 months, or 8.3 years. Is that not an option?
There's actually historical evidence for that. It's a money making scheme. A state enforced money making scheme. They word the contracts in a way that allows them to talk themselves of having to pay, pretty much, everything they claim to pay for, except in the case of declared natural disasters. That's actually my husband's job, PUBLIC insurance adjuster, to make insurance up hold their end of the contract. (The "public" part in his title is very important) I've studied what he studied for his license. It would do more for you if you just canceled all insurance and put that money into a savings account. By the time a disaster/emergency hits you, you'll probably be able to pay for it yourself. The services are usually cheaper if you tell those providing you services that you're paying out of pocket (aka they don't have to fight with the insurance company).
one of the most frustrating medical things I've dealt with was when I was having a really bad allergic reaction to a bug bite (my entire elbow where it bit me was swollen to size of golf-ball for two days, incredibly itchy and warm, and couldn't feel my arm b/c it was starting to go numb) and I got to an urgent care center it felt like a paywall before I could get any help
It did. Now it INSTRUCTS the Mafia (i.e. cartels) on how best to steal from the government and taxpayers LEGALLY (by getting anything and everything that reduces middle class growth made legal).
As someone on Medicare who just had $20,000 of out-of-pocket (non-cosmetic) dental work done, I thank you for caring, Dr. G, and tell Jimothy to never stop caring and fighting for our "luxury bones"!
@@WinteryMix84 Wow, I'm sorry. I can only say do whatever it takes to do it, whatever it takes, because the cost, pain, and cumulative damage only get worse. It sucks. I'm sorry.
I'm currently watching this with a terrible infection in one of my many damaged teeth and I hate this. This one particular tooth that snapped in half years ago gets infected and abscesses on a monthly basis lately. Which means having to take strong antibiotics _every single month,_ which is obviously bad for me too. I finally got up the courage to go to a dentist to see what I'd need to fix my teeth and left with a $40,000 quote to just pull everything and get denture implants (even though I'm only 32). I'm on welfare insurance because I'm disabled, so I'm pretty much just fucked, and that's _so goddamn wrong._ My health problems ruined my teeth and I hate that I just have to go through life knowing that my teeth will only ever continue to get worse. Every time this infection flares up I'm terrified that it'll spread and kill me. Even just getting this one tooth fixed would be probably $1,000 or so, so getting it fixed isn't even a possibility for me like that. I'm not alone in this either, millions of people in the US are suffering exactly the way I am and it's fucking inexcusable for a country with as much resources as ours does
As it says it does* while we're being honest about healthcare, if we actually put the money companies *say* they make back into the healthcare system, it prob wouldn't be broken up into 3 parts and might be effective! On a different note, spent since at least 2019 trying to figure out what's causing my disability. So far we've got... Fatigue. And that's it 🙃 I'm honestly kinda scared for my dental future bc well when you're too tired to brush teeth...
Wait $42,000?!?!?!?! My uncle got his done through our dental system here in Australia and cost him nothing 😮😮😮 I feel for you guys. I mean, I've signed petitions to better the US healthcare system. I have quite a few friends in the US. It's horrible to see them suffer.
So sorry you are in pain! Do you live near a city or college that has a dentistry program? Many have dental clinics where the students work on you (with oversight of course) and it can be free. Temple University here in Philly does this. Also some towns/counties have dental clinics for people who have no $/are uninsured (call whoever handles the food bank/homeless services near you and they may know more) ❤
Hey, getting your infected tooth taken care of probably cost $50 bucks. You don’t need implants. False teeth works just as well. Find the cheapest time to fly to Bangkok and see a doctor from this clinic. Their main dentist graduated from a university that is equivalent to a Harvard from their country. They speak English. Stay in a hostel for $10/night. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mMhFbSJL6BM.html
"Teeth are luxury bones." As someone with a mom who works in trying to provide appropriate care for the homeless population this is honestly distressingly true.
Im a dental student, and I have spoken to MANY dentists on the issue of insurance. One of the biggest reasons current dentists are against being included in medicare/why fees are so expensive is because private insurance reimbursements are pitiful or they dont even cover the procedure. This puts a HUGE burden on the dentist because they are now required to either charge exorbitant prices or grind procedures with little regard to patients. Dentists are graduating with INSANE levels of debt (almost 100k more than medical school), and their earning potential is lower than physicians on average. I would love a world where dentists can provide quality care to patients and actually spend time with them, but there needs to be a massive change in culture for that to happen. Dental school is too expensive, overhead is expensive, insurance companies dont respect dentists, etc.
Yeah my dad's a dentist and he's said multiple times that he would love it the government gave him a decent salary and a few weeks vacation to treat everyone for free. I don't think people realize how low dental insurance payouts are - one of the main companies in our (major metropolitan) area pays ~$68 for a cleaning + exam. If a patient has a $50 copay that company might pay $30 for the first filling of the year. And they keep lowering the payments while raising patient fees, which means dentists keep raising fees on everyone (which in practice means the un/underinsured) to compensate. If you're looking at something like an implant, you're lucky if the insurance payment covers the cost of materials, much less the time & expertise it takes to actually do the service.
As a young dentist 1 year into his career- many of us can’t afford to see medicaid patients. They pay 1/4 of the cost and we have to eat the losses. I’m in 300k dollars of student debt. I applied for the NHSC scholarship where I would commit years of service in high need areas for help with my student loans but I was not accepted. They only accept less than 50 in the whole country. Why not expand that? I want to help people and I believe that everyone deserves access to care but I simply can’t afford it.
The "root" cause is clearly the 300k debt you have. The colleges are allowed to pile you with debt with no oversight, which means you struggle, which means everyone struggles. medical schools should be free and the students who graduate should do some form of community outreach to reimburse the community
@@GildedOnyx you cant run a private institution training people in medical and dental stuff and not charge for education. if anything there should be a sliding scale with emphasis on grades and performance. do better pay less.
@@elchunkacabra1450 oh man there's enough scumbaggery in medical school already. You'll have even more people moving the pins during anatomy exam. forget study groups and sharing notes. the education would actually suffer.
Tech companies and vehicle manufactures have hire the ones available, so they had to settle with "people who are ok with taking sweets off a children". Jimothy passed with flying colours, however he takes sweets off a children due genuine concerns for their health.
@@MorningMeasure definitely! OR he (formerly she) may be someone's nephew and was hired by an uncle due to a pushy aunt. I knew an arab guy that worked as safety inspector for nuclear power plants. He got the job with the approval and support of the tribal head ... but once said head gave him orders to ignore safety violations/oopies from other clan members ...he quit his very nice job and left the country.
If you live in a city with a university that offers dentistry and you struggle to afford dental care, it might be worth looking into if they accept patients. I have done it for the past two cities I lived in, and I am happy I did. I've only ever had to pay for material cost, and I find the level of care superior to that of private practices, since the students still (have to) care about providing a decent service, rather than pawning their work off to assistants. Your appointments will probably take longer, since everything has to be approved by a senior (check-up and cleaning can take 2-3 hours), but for those few appointments per year that's hopefully manageable. There might also be a waiting list, but having to wait half a year for affordable care beats never getting any because it's too expensive
This is how we were able to get my uncle's teeth fixed and then dentures afterwards. So, they do more than just cleanings and fillings. He was old school and would pull his own teeth. He had fragments that had to be removed and gums healed before the dentures could be created. It took about 2 months to do it all.
The University of Minnesota dental school clinic is hands down the best dental care I've ever gotten. And they don't put you on the waiting list for emergencies! Although their definition of "emergency" is a bit strict
It's pathetic that the "solution" capitalism provides for the problem that it itself created is to become a test subject for students. Y'all better think a lot harder about your politics if you object to capitalist exploitation but support capitalist economics. Otherwise this will never change because it's literally working as intended.
The last time I visited the dentist was 20 years ago for a wisdom tooth extraction that I paid out of pocket. I still went to dental school to save money. I'm an independent contractor and self-employed and there's just no good plans available at at a reasonable price. I'm lucky that my dental health in my General Health estate good, avoiding processed foods and junk Foods and and soda pop I think is saved me a lot of money, but I'm not counting on staying this way. I'm getting older and I know that lack of dental care and lack of healthcare will eventually catch up with me.
I work as a dental nurse in the UK, and honestly, it's the same here. Dental insurance is an add-on, and private entail care costs a fortune. NHS dentists are a thing of the past, and there are limitations to what patients can have. It's sad how people can't have access to dental care because of barriers by corporate companies. I've seen so many people struggle with oral hygiene and their teeth and are unable to access basic care and are given an ultimatum of having teeth removed due to poor funding in the NHS. And even with dental insurance, you can only have certain treatments by the company as jot everything is covered, so yet again, you either end up losing the tooth or have to pay through the nose for treatment. Really love your videos Doc, please do more dental skits 😊🙏❤️ Thanks for the likes!! 😅
I'm so lucky to have an NHS dentist. I once had a wisdom tooth removed under the NHS at the local hospital. Later had bad experiences with my dentist I thought I'd bite the bullet and get insurance and go private to go to a better reviewed dentist. Realised if I needed another wisdom tooth removed I would be sent to the same hospital but it wouldn't be covered by insurance or the NHS this time and I'd have to pay for the same procedure by the same people in the same room as before. Really hope NHS dentistry survives. Thank you for your work, you deserve the world!
@Shmubob this is the issue. There's so many flaws with our system, and no one thinks about trying to help or save it. People need NHS dental services as it is essential that EVERYONE has access to good dental care, not just a few individuals. Bless you, I'm glad that you've got an NHS dentist, but at the same time, unfortunately, you had to pay to have the same treatment done privately.
Same here in Norway, it's awful. We have socialized medicine where healthcare is free, or at the very least incredibly affordable, but dental health is not covered, so we have to pay a whole heck of a lot. There are some people who are exempt from paying, for instance disabled people, long time drug addicts who fit strict criteria, people of a certain age with certain incomes etc., but very few people fit the strict criteria for free dental care. It's horrendous. Why exclude TEETH from the body as if it's not health related!??? Wtf? Teeth/dental health are a vital part of everybody's health. Free, affordable and accessable healthcare shouldn't be able to exclude certain body parts. It makes zero sense.
Same here in Australia. You either pay the crazy prices or you get health insurance with dental added (often you pay a gap). Certain things aren't covered.
This 100%. I used to work in long term care. Mostly buildings with high psych & Medicaid census (amazing how those two overlap) but it was common for many of the residents to be missing half their teeth. They could only get help with their teeth when something like a jaw abscess had finally resulted and landed them at the ER. At that point the emergency dentist at the hospital would be covered to pull the tooth so that the abscess could be drained and flushed. Not uncommon at that point to end up with a whole cascade of bone infection, sepsis, and cDiff from all the antibiotic. So that plus the ER visit was covered because that was deemed important. But we wouldn’t want to have covered a cleaning and cavity fill a year ago that would have prevented it and cost 1/10th the final hospital bill. It’s just madness.
This hits hard, as I was just searching for Mexican practices that do dental implants because I can’t afford the cost of my local periodontist. And I can’t chew unless I get my tooth replaced.
In addition to the physical risks associated with dental issues, they can also cause depression, reduced socialization, and even impact people's chances of being chosen as job candidates in interviews. Dental care IS medical care, and it needs to be recognized and covered as such.
There was a great article in the New Yorker years ago about a woman who, against all the odds, as a single parent living in a trailer park with a disabled child, managed to get a degree, but struggled to find employment because of her horrible dental situation.
YES THIS FREAKING EXACTLY - a very frustrated young dentist who works in community health. Oral healthcare is healthcare and the fact that SO MANY PEOPLE have the emergency room as their dental home (meaning they can’t afford to go to the dentist so they wait until a tooth becomes infected and swells their face up or they have a medical emergency and just go to the ER to get antibiotics) says everything in the world about how nauseatingly broken the business of healthcare but especially dentistry is in this goddamn country. THANKS eye dentist, I’m texting this to all my buddies and showing it at work
@@briannerk3373 stfu. the system, the actual government and associations have to change. don't you dare put such an immense burden on an individual. Do you not even look at the world? to make any change, to even protest, you have to risk lives which is crazy. And ppl are protesting the system, but we aren't the ones with the money and true ability to change anything. the ones in power, the insurance companies and their backers are. what are you going to do about it? why not tell me something helpful. you got a better approach to fix the system?
@@briannerk3373 G-g-g-g-guns out! It is clear that having 99% of your population actively want and even vote for something and then be systematically ignored by a corrupt oligarchy for decades/ entire generations isn't working. Complaining is the only course of action left for most people who actually have something to lose... but for the rest of us? G-g-g-g-g--
@Brian Nerk, we can't do anything really. The only thing we can do is wait and vote for a politician who wishes to tackle such a project. But usually they are tackling "more important" topics. Either that or weeeeee RIOT!!!!!
@@briannerk3373 Well what you gonna do about it? I am not gonna do anything because if I do something it includes me being a hero. I don't like being a hero because it includes more self sacrifice and possibly gets offed, or blacklisted by the authority.
Standing ovation, Sir. I spent over a decade working in a supportive therapy program for adults living with Mental Illness. Many of our group, as is typical, had their first bout of serious mental illness as teens or young adults, and as a result many were debilitated before their working lives even really began. They had to rely on state insurance and Medicaid. And as a result, most of them were missing many or all of their teeth by the time they were in their late 30s. They couldn't afford to have cavities filled, much less crowns out on...but extractions were cheap or free. 💔
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have been telling everyone who would listen for YEARS now that Dental health care should be covered by ALL regular health insurance plans.
This makes me appreciate my dentist more. I needed an emergency dental visit but had terrible dental insurance that wouldn't talk to dr's office and 5 years of dentist trauma from a different clinic. My dental office had me play phone tag between them and insurance, actually giving me questions to ask and even follow-up questions and helped me get into the office the same day with insurance coverage.
THANK YOU! This is something I’ve encountered, and currently a friend’s husband is forgoing necessary treatment for a spreading dental infection because they need to spend the money on their family. Meanwhile their child needs glasses they also can’t afford. It’s a terrible system.
@@danakruger I agree. This is a family with two working parents who on paper make a decent income. They’re frugal but child care and living expenses are high. They work so hard and do their best and it never seems to get easier for them.
Even if they make decent money depending on what state you live in. (I'm just assuming US). They often have children's State Funded health insurance that will cover stuff like dental work, eye checkups and glasses. Unfortunately it depends on how...progressive your state's views are, but there are potential options. I would try talking to their teachers at school or better the school nurse. Our school nurse helped a bunch of kids get taken care of with dental and eyecare
as someone who just went into a dental seminar, we talked about a patient who was only 9 yrs old and was diagnosed with ameloblastoma, it was even found late by the dentist despite having X ray records from age 5 and 7 where you can see that the supposed 2nd molar deviated even farther from where it should go and the other permanent teeth hasn't even developed a tooth bud yet. these type of cases could develop into oral cancer and worse, it would be really helpful to have people get insurance for oral health, and for us Dentists we shouldn't be fixated on the dentition too much and make sure the patients doesn't have any lesions, sores, or ulcers.
The discovery of fluoride for water is fascinating! Look up Colorado Brown Spot - people who sourced their drinking water from a certain aqueduct got weird brown splotches on their teeth, but they also had like zero cavities. They changed their water supply to a different lake, and suddenly the kids started getting cavities. A dentist took notes this whole time, got real confused, and sent water samples to a lab to see if there were any differences (or if the spots & strength came from another source). Their equipment wasn't very good, but a lab tech was able to find fluorides in the water. They ran some tests to figure out how much fluoride was needed to provide benefits without causing brown splotches, and that's what we have today.
If you pay your insurance company to pay for something routine like an eye exam, you’re just paying them to be a middle man. That’s why we have car insurance for big accident liabilities that would bankrupt us, not to pay for gas and new tires.
My favourite thing is when an issue could be both medical and dental (like TMD) and the insurance companies reenact that Spiderman meme over who should cover it. Bonus points for the dentist sending late bills because the patient has to pay for it in the meantime while (more like if) the insurance figures it out.
This happened to me in college but about vision. I had a serious eye infection that made my eyelids so swollen I couldn’t see and because not being able to see was a symptom my medical insurance denied coverage and told me to go to a different (not covered) eye doctor, when all I needed were some antibiotics and eye drops
I have tmj. My dental insurance said it should be covered by my health insurance. Health insurance said dental should cover it. Neither covered any treatment. Health insurance: BCBS Alabama Dental insurance: BCBS Alabama Yeah. You read that right. The same freakin’ company. 🤬
As a dentist that has graduated May 2022 this has been my experience so far: I really really wished that insurance in the medical and dental field would be better in general. Dental insurance fees barely ever go up and when they do it's way lower than inflation rate. The avg salary of a dentist hasn't really gone up for at least a decade. The other thing is that technology and dental care has been rapidly getting better, more information, more research and also more expensive materials that is the new standard of care. The issue is that some insurances fees are so little that doing the case in a way that would be most beneficial to the patient would lead the dentist in the negatives, paying out overhead like assistant salary, materials, lab fees, chair time. All of that and I believe that assistant salaries are also way too low by the way. There's also vast misconception and a lack of understanding when it comes to the dental field. It may be due to the media but for some odd reason many people don't see the mouth as a part of the body. They don't understand that oral health can lead to all those things that you listed in your video and more and when I do recommend what I believe would be the best way to treat that part of the body, I do get patients that can afford it but choose not to do it because of how dentists are portrayed as business man over health care providers. Many patients will call themselves "customers" instead of patients, and that makes me sad that every time I truly believe that something is more beneficial to a pt I will always hesitate because of the perception we get as dentists. I also see a lot of dental students in the comments and the thing is, I'm not trying to be demeaning, but once you get into the field and actually start working, you will have your mindset greatly expanded. People are saying that dentists have a better lifestyle than your avg physician and that's also a misconception. There's a reason a lot of physical therapists see a lot of dentists retire early due to spine issues. Dentistry is super back breaking. Yes you may see us sitting in chairs, but we are literally performing surgery where every single mm counts inside a small work environment at weird angles, while controlling the soft tissue and tongue and hopefully the patient is doing their best to not move around. I usually love your content Dr. Glaucomflecken, but I wish this video wasn't so dentists are against the well being of people because we want to get paid. I think there's a large perspective issue when it comes to how people view dentistry and also a huge issue with dental insurance in their fee schedule.
The fact is that dentists and dental associations have made dentistry what it is. They have used lobbying, regulatory capture, anti-competitive practices, limits on the supply of dentists (by opposing the opening of new dental schools by state universities) to make it so that dentists make more and work less than they did in the 1980s. With regard to things like materials, because they interpose themselves as materials shopkeepers, there are no opportunities for insurance companies to use their bargaining power to negotiate better deals (like we see with the prescription drug market). Unlike prescription drugs, there doesn't seem to be a significant generics market--again, because dentists prefer to deal with suppliers themselves, and individual patients are presented with 'accept this or suffer' alternatives. So when dentists complain that they're being portrayed unfairly, they have no one to blame except themselves, and if they want to fix it, they need to start with their own associations and their political activities.
@@tomdolan7752 lol what bargaining powers. All I've seen from insurances is them trying to dictate treatment and refuse to pay for treatment that they said they would cover. Materials is something that is partially decided by labs but also for everyday materials every dentist will use different materials. There are plenty of different brands and options to choose from, but not all are made equal. Opposing the opening of new dental schools is probably due to the fear of oversaturation but you also have to realize a lot of that is a decision made by cdc and the dental schools not necessarily individual dentists.
I lost my job last year, because I refused the Jab. With no job, no dental insurance. I moved to a low cost state. There is only 1 insurance company plan available in my area. it cost 800 dollars a year and has a 2K for services cap per year. The first year, they do not cover any procedures except for cleanings and a routine exam. I am paying for dental care , instead of getting insurance. It will cost me less to pay out of pocket.
@@kmleasur don't get it twisted. I'm not saying dentists can't make good money. And youre also assuming that the dentists building "palaces" are taking all insurances. Plus having a stress free office will probably benefit the patient too. Just saying a lot of insurances underpay. When there are insurances that pay the dentist less to do microsurgery to remove a rotting body part accurately than some barbers charge for a woman's haircut... esp when a dentist has to go thru 4 yrs of schooling on top of undergrad with hundreds of thousands of debt. I'm all for patients paying less and insurances paying more. The way that insurances are now is really sad
If you live in the US. Health insurances' are required to cover those things for children (people under the legal age of 18), and kids can be extended onto their parents insurance plans til 25yrs old, but it costs cause legally you're an adult. People under the age get the free healthcare because the idea is that if children have a good start with glasses, dental, and other health checkups. They'll be healthier and more able-bodied adults. A lot of these laws were enacted between WWI-WWII and onwards. Cause when they called people up for the draft. They realized having a chronically underfed and ill taken care of population doesn't make the fittest soldiers. Also, children have a harder time learning if they can't see/ hear properly
Omg this is the best discussion with “health insurance” and Jimothy so far! Yes!!! Exactly! It’s all health and should be all under one insurance with NO add on or extras!!!!
My experience with dental insurance has been that in rural areas, the brand of dental insurance you have isn’t accepted by any local dentist. I live in a very small town. We had 2 dentists in town, and 1 eye doc. The eye doc came once a week for years and was in his other office (out of county) the other 4 days of the week. The poor here had to either save up money for dental care or glasses, or they borrowed enough money from the bank and paid it off for a year, or just did without. Teeth cleanings were considered a thing that “the rich” got.
Same here in Norway, it's awful. We have socialized medicine where healthcare is free, or at the very least incredibly affordable, but dental health is not covered, so we have to pay a whole heck of a lot. There are some people who are exempt from paying, for instance disabled people, long time drug addicts who fit strict criteria, people of a certain age with certain incomes etc., but very few people fit the strict criteria for free dental care. It's horrendous. Why exclude TEETH from the body as if it's not health related!??? Wtf? Teeth/dental health are a vital part of everybody's health. Free, affordable and accessable healthcare shouldn't be able to exclude certain body parts. It makes zero sense.
yes sure i agree healthcare should be free but there is a problem those materials used and labor cost of the dentists/anesthesiologists is not free they don't work or make anything for free so somoene has to pay for it it's usually out of our taxes so 100% of people pay for the needs of the few it's a great system until you have to spread those funds so for example you are paying 100$ maybe 1$ goes to dental then your dental costs comes to 1000$ so 1000 people had to pay for you which is 0.1% of people being able to receive help of that magnitud every month the other scenario is if the government covers it if that happens then doctors and hospitals can upprice as much as they want because the government will pay up which again increases the costs to an insane amount the only solution here is to let people pay as that is the only way to control the market if the service is unafordable then those hospitals/businesses will lose money and go bankrupt and to not do that they will down regulate the costs and become more efficient sadly health care is not something that can be "fixed" there is no real solution we have way too many people way too little money to go around and putting more money on it will just inflate the market and things go back to what they were before but even less affordable than before this is why i think there should be research done on preventative care a lot more currently there are a lot of anecdotal experiences that point towards that teeth can heal and why shouldn't they really the tooth has blood and nerve supply it grows from that so why shouldn't it be able to heal too in part because it's really hard to tell people to suffer for a prolongued period of time for a control test or anything for one the problem can escalate and invalidate the test but hopefully we get researches done one day on diet and practices beside tooth brushing that can help heal teeth so that dental care becomes an emergency care field instead of general care because of our way of life
@@MostWantedWannaBE This is why you don't privatize healthcare. We have plenty enough resources for everybody. People get caught up thinking "all these people are paying for just a few folks" but it's not the same people the whole time, it's all manner of people from all over the community at different times. Why the hell gripe when Tom has to get a kidney replacement when he's paying for you to get heart surgery down the road? Taxes should pay for the whole damn thing. It should be run by the government and the healthcare budget should be kept separate from the overall budgeting committee discussions so that it isn't directly competing with shit like the military budget. It'd solve a hell of a lot of problems all within the same decade. And create new and interesting ones too, but I think I'd take the issues that arise from centralized healthcare over a system where you can just jam up the price of insulin until everyone under a certain income bracket just dies.
Out of curiosity - an out-of-pocket cleaning here (the no-insurance cash rate) here is about $250, which is, I think, about $2,500 kroner. That is just the cleaning from the technician, no x-rays, no exam from the dentist. What does it cost there?
@@mosoar8751 I'm honestly not sure, but from what I've heard (I get it covered for free due to fitting a lot of the criteria, thankfully) it's pretty much the same. It's incredibly pricey, even for just a checkup, a cleaning or something simple, but add on x-rays, fillings, extractions etc. and it can easily cost you like 10 000 norwegian kr/kroner. It's horrendous.
@@MostWantedWannaBE 1. Teeth can heal a bit, provided it hasn't reached a certain point. There are products out there to help with this as well. You're right though, in the US system there is little to zero emphasis on preventative care in general, and checkups and tests cost money that a good chunk of people don't have. 2. "the other scenario is if the government covers it if that happens then doctors and hospitals can upprice as much as they want because the government will pay up which again increases the costs to an insane amount" If that is guaranteed to happen, why is the US system way more expensive per capita than systems with single payer or a public option? 3. "so for example you are paying 100$ maybe 1$ goes to dental then your dental costs comes to 1000$ so 1000 people had to pay for you which is 0.1% of people being able to receive help of that magnitud every month" These numbers are fine for an example, but in reality everyone isn't going to the dentist every day so not everyone needs the service at any given time. Hopefully that puts those numbers into perspective for you.
It's insane how health insurance works in USA and many other countries, I guess. By the way, my lab works with a lot of periodontal diseases and yes, there are many correlations with Rheumatoid arthritis and Ankylosing spondylitis!! It's so important to be checking this on the elderly. I hope better access to healthcare comes someday!
Well said! I call it criminal and believe that the transformation of the insurance industry is a primary factor of the mess that is US healthcare. The initial model for insurance is nowhere to be found (in healthcare or anywhere else!). You know, pay premiums and your costs are covered; insurance company collects premiums and invests so they take in more than they spend. . I am blessed with great healthcare and just recently had a tooth filled that needs a crown because 80% of a lower cost is more affordable right now than 50% of a larger cost (basic vs major service coinsurance)
One of the saddest things is that dentistry is one of the medical practices with the highest suicide rate (veterinary medicine is the other one) and one of the reasons is... they often see their patients when it's too late to actually fix anything, and they usually just have to turn patients away if they can't afford treatment -- both of which will definitely not help your mental health as a provider 😔
My dentist- who eventually did commit suicide - told me that one of the reasons for the high numbers was the fact that not a single patient wanted to see a dentist…ever. 😬
Wow. I didn’t realize. One of the reasons that I ended up leaving my position with social services was because it was extremely frustrating when various regulations meant we had to deny someone who needed help. It was heartbreaking. Those cases vastly outnumbered the tiny handful of people abusing the system. Every time I talk about what my job was, I get met with a bunch of stories of someone’s friend’s sister’s neighbor’s daughter who was clearly “leeching off the system” (because this is a red state). I’m so frustrated that people point to that as a reason not to expand services or close exclusion loopholes. And it all falls on deaf ears anyway… Yeah, okay thinking about it, I get why dental professionals are a high risk group. It’s the same struggle.
Well, they shot themselves in the foot….or I guess the head in this case….by lobbying to stay out of Medicare. Maybe they should lobby things the other way around.
As a dentist, I agree 100%. This is just scratching the surface of how messed up dental plans (they are not dental insurance) are here. Yeah, in MA we got question #2 passed but there still isn't anything like that nationwide.
My guess is that it's because dentures are so much cheaper than actually fixing teeth beyond basic fillings or cleaning. You can spend $1000-$2000 per root canal, or just replace all your teeth for like $600. The insurance would rather pay for the latter.
This is painfully true. I lost most my teeth in an accident and united healthcare refered me to my delta dental insurance ( even with a TBI and 19 ruined teeth, the cap was $1,500... and now im getting implants 3 years later after 7 crowns all failed due to damage from the explosion/injury and its 50 to 65,000 dollars for new implants... 40,000 or more for anchored dentures... thanks 1,500 limit). Thank you for doing these episodes doc!
If you lost your teeth due to documented trauma from a motor vehicle collision--then your medical insurance is supposed to cover that (even Medicare will). You may have been incorrectly denied or the claim wasn't submitted properly to UHC. They make mistakes all the time, because your situation isn't that common compared to what they usually deal with. Dental "insurance" is for covering tooth loss due to dental disease (decay, gum disease, etc.) which is largely preventable with correct diet and hygiene. Medical insurance does not cover that.
I’ve got three implants. My last one was in 2017 and cost approximately $4,500 but with my dental cover that came down to about $2,000 and then i was on a six month payment plan. It would be cheaper to fly here to Australia and get the dental work done. No doubt the prices here would have increased but they are nowhere near the astronomical levels your system is gouging out of people.
Try Costa Rica. You can get qualified dentists that retired from practice in the US to perform dental procedures for a fraction of the cost of getting the procedures here. Plus, you get to go to Costa Rica!
I've always thought dental "insurance" was weird. It's really a discount plan that costs $160-360 per year and only really covers minor preventative work like two cleanings a year and one xray a year but you'll still have to pay a small fee even for that.
It's sad where hospital administration has gone. My grandfather did that job and when he retired he left them a 20 year future technology integration guide that was so accurate, the staff brought it to his funeral to tell us all how valuable it had been. He introduced new concepts during his time such as washing hands and separating birthing wards from sick wards from trauma wards. His job was making sure the hospital was the best it could be for the patients, and I'm sure he would be very upset by the current trends. He was forced to retire after a stress induced heart attack and lifetime of putting the work first degrading his body as so many doctors do. He never bragged about what he did, I learned it all at his funeral when hundreds of people showed up because to him, helping people was just what you do.
I never knew a lot of this. I have periodontitis at a very young age (basically it's inherited) and require dental cleanings every 3 months to keep the disease in check. With this proactive care I no longer have gum tissue loss, which means I won't have bone tissue loss, which saves me horrific complications down the road including heart disease as Jimothy pointed out. But dental insurance will not pay for the extra visits; I pay out of pocket. It's appalling that our own ADA basically opposes the kind of care they claim to want to provide.
This may sound dumb but look into xylitol gum or just swishing with xylitol as a supplementary thing to help between cleanings. It zaps the plaque bacteria and has been proven in multiple studies to reduce the amount of buildup and harmful bacteria. You can feel it too, teeth feel clean and smooth afterwards.
Some things are inherited but periodontal disease is not one of them. Poor dental habits are what are passed down. Hope you get better with caring for your teeth.
@@pria7538 Obviously periodontal diseases aren't inherited but the risk factors are. Next time think before your raptor fingers start plucking away at the keyboard.
Let's not forget to mention that WHAT IS and HOW MUCH is covered by dental insurance has not changed in probably 40+ yrs. Yeah my cleanings & yearly x-rays are covered but if I need anything significant like a root canal, crown, an implant, dentures, or braces.... I better figure out how to finance it. I once had to call the on-call ortho to get a hospitalist consult for a post-op pt I admitted who's BP stayed in the 170s/110s for hours after they woke up and realized anesthesia knocked out a filling/piece of their front tooth during intubation.
I’ve had the same dental plan for 20 years, the coverage is the same but my premiums have increased and my dentist doesn’t even want to accept it. They want me to file the claim and have my insurance mail me a check, and the check never covers what the dentist charges. I called my insurance carrier and they told me I need to increase my coverage to get more coverage, $1500 a year is all they cover and I pay close to $900 a year for what I have. This industry needs more scrutiny, now that I’m getting older and need it they don’t want to pay for anything and my dentist says they are to difficult to deal with.
This one hit a little close to home. My family had to pick a fight with our insurance provider because they changed our Dental to something else without letting us know.
Same in the Netherlands. Dental is an add-on, and most plans cover only up to a certain amount. I work as a policy advisor in poverty/debt cancellation and we so often see people who haven't been to a dentist in years, to the point where they can't get a job because of their dental issues, meaning they stay poor and can't afford dental etc...
Yes, you have brought so much humour into my life but you have also IMO rightfully slapped people with the reality of how messed up healthcare is. As a retired EMT it was hard seeing people go to the hospital knowing that they most likely had no insurance and would end up with huge medical bills or even get the proper care because the "hospital" not doctors won't allow tests to be done. I know that first-hand. When I suffered a moderate TBI (GCS -9) when the attending found out I did not have health insurance more extensive tests were not run. 12 years later I have long-term and short-term memory loss and a host of other issues. If I had early intervention my life would be different in so many ways. But because someone who sits behind a desk says nope that costs too much money treat and street I am messed up forever. I know the brain is a hot mess and maybe it still would be screwed up but they were not allowed to try nor put me in rehab. The family had to help oh and Google yay! Again thank you for standing up to the healthcare system you have made a difference.
Thanks for shinning a sorely needed illumination on this very odd situation. Sadly, we all know that neither the AMA or the ADA give flock about Health care.
@@MeatBunFul That's such an incredibly ignorant thing to say. Not everybody who has dental problems has them because they just didn't brush their teeth. I have terrible teeth that I can't even chew properly with, and guess what? I didn't do a damn thing wrong. I'm disabled, and my other health problems went undiagnosed and uncared for for a long time, and I ended up severely malnourished. Do you know what happens to your teeth when you're literally slowly starving to death? They die too. They break, crumble, and rot because your entire body is shutting down. And there wasn't a damn thing I could have done to prevent that. Not a single cavity until I was 16, and by my mid 20s I had terribly broken teeth. I don't even talk to people in public anymore because I know I'll be judged by people like you who would just see my teeth as me being a gross person who let her teeth rot away because I just didn't feel like brushing them. I have an awful infection in one of my teeth right now and at this point I just can't afford to fix it because I'm still disabled. There are countless reasons why people have bad teeth, and _very_ few people are in that situation simply because they didn't feel like brushing their teeth. So before you make ignorant assumptions about somebody else's suffering, stop and consider how incredibly damaging to us your comments can be. It's hard enough having bad teeth, but being unfairly judged for it just makes it so much worse
Unfortunately had to take my son to the hospital for a severe allergic reaction tonight. When the doctor came in wearing v fitted scrub pants and a shmedium wicking fabric top I thought, "ah Emergency Medicine is here." Thanks for helping me sort it out, Doc G.
An idea for your next jab at health insurance: pharmacy prior auth renewals. "Did the patient's allergy to what we prefer to cover go away in the last twelve months?" "No" "Okay, give us a few days to finalize the paperwork, maybe a week, maybe two..." "...but the patient is out of medication... again"
The dentists in your universe are hilarious! On a more serious note, people who don't have access to dental care can develop infections so severe that it costs them their lives. It has happened before, it has happened to children. Dental care should be fully included with Medicare and Medicaid. It's not flashy, but good dental care can do so much to keep people healthy and even save lives!
as a chemical engineer, I check my water quality every 3 months by checking if all chemicals supposed to be in it are in the correct range (to ensure nothing is wrong with my incoming pipes like lead) so I would notice if my water became defluorinated.
Can a non- chemical engineer such as myself do this too? I would love to know what’s in our public water … and what’s NOT SUPPOSED to be in it! Thank you
Flouride toothpatse tells you on the label ,, DO NOT SWALLOW,, flouride is poisonious ,,and its one of the biggest scams in american history ,, it makes you stupid and passive, perfect little sheep that are easy to lead into control situations,,, .00000002 % of the water in home is used to brush your teeth ,,why the fuck would you need flouride to drink ,cook , shower in ,wash your clothes , when flouride is allmost every toothpaste available ,nationwide ? The fuckin nazis experimented with this shit on thier prisoners,,and it worked,, and our leaders embraced thier sciences and evil doctors in those fields,,, ITS NOT ABOUT YOUR HEALTH .
I spoke at length with a man who got extensive brain damage from an abscessed tooth. He was sent home from the E.R. on Christmas, later to be readmitted to Neuro. The dental school in our city also now charges normal rates & requires a PPO.
I asked KRISS AI and Cardiovascular Disease, Endocarditis, Pregnancy complications, pneumonia, diabetes complications, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer's disease are some more examples that are directly related to poor oral health! The government should take dental care seriously!!!
In france (apart for dental implant that cost 2000€/teeth for the patient) most of the tooth intervention are very well reimbursed by health insurance. Gotta fight to protect our system. USA doesn't make sense to me, i am scared that we'll end up like you one day...
Same here in Germany. Basic support includes dentistry, all problems get solved, yet no implants and no whitening procedures are included. But you get bridges or dentures and pay nothing.
Honestly the dental situation here is awful, I have a PPO plan and was denied a simple deep clean because according to the insurance company they felt I didn't really need it because to put it simply "my teeth were not damaged enough" even though my dentist said I definitely needed it 🤦♂️.
it's like that skit where it would be cheaper to go to india get a hip replacement stay at a 4* hotel for 2 weeks while you rehab break your hip again get it replaced again stay for another 2 weeks and go home than just getting it done in american with insurance
I’m curious whether your insurance companies have dentists denying these claims and if not why a claims denier thinks they have more medical knowledge and competence than your dentist. Here things are automatically covered in your policy and the insurance company doesn’t get to make a value judgement like that.
@@kayelle8005 in bulgaria i haven't had the need to argue for insurance yet either but when i want things done they sometimes tell me that im not covered for that and to go get fucked instead basically we just pay eitherway for most things and if i had the taxed money that went to healthcare saved up instead in an account for healthcare i would have the money to pay easily 10fold and get regularly checked and treated every year instead im paying and getting nothing because if i go for a treatment nothing gets covered anyway yey
In Puerto Rico (a U.S. territory) I'm grateful to be able to afford a comprehensive medical plan can include dental and vision. I work for a company based in the mainland and I declined their medical plan offers, which separated everything (medicines, vision, dental, health) to choose a local private plan which was less of an expense with more coverage.
Way to go Jimothy! 👍 Dental insurance is a joke! I got a plan that's supposed to pay regular dental work plus $2500 of major dental work. So far I've paid about $2000 out of pocket! 🤨 Jimothy hit the nail on the head! We pay extra for dental coverage then end up paying for all the uncovered procedures! I'm still trying to figure out exactly what they pay! And if there's an insurance company that actually pays well, you have to pay a fortune for it! As people get older, the need for dental work grows rapidly! There are so many people who can't afford any dental work and so many other health problems arise from lack of care. I was actually sent to an emergency room for a tooth! My face was swollen and the infection was so bad that I spent 3 days in the emergency room receiving IV antibiotics! The only consolation was the stay was paid for by Medical Insurance! Luckily I didn't have dental work done in the hospital! I appreciate the fact that you recognize this problem and that we can laugh about it. Maybe some day this will change for the better, otherwise there will be a whole lot of toothless people! 😮 Thanks for the knod to inefficient insurance! We laugh to keep from crying! Irony can really make you laugh (or pull out your hair)! 🤯 Let's all rally with Jimothy and get these idiots on board! 🤩
No doubt, I just had to pay a 750$ reservation fee (what!?) then another 2,065 out of pocket at time of procedure. Granted my son needs sedation (autism) to get anything done, and needed a lot of work. But that 750 just to have an appointment set smarts, then they told me that no, they do not do any kind of financing. Like they didn't just suck my HSA dry with that initial fee. And now I have to figure out if I have to fight the insurance or the dentist for a reimbursement.
I'm a Medicare patient and learned the hard way, about dental coverage. I recently broke a molar and scrambled to find private dental coverage. The plans that were affordable EXCLUDED COVERAGE FOR THE FULL FIRST YEAR! On what planet would that make sense . . .
I have good medical and dental insurance, but need a single tooth pulled and replaced due to a genetic resorption (autramatic, no cavities) but the cost is outrageous on my dental alone. Due to it being medical (genetic) my medical insurance should cover what my dental doesn't. But I can't even get to that step because no oral surgeon or dentist around will even return my calls when I ask if they'll bill both. I know many can. But like six offices have straight up ghosted me when all I do is ask them to call me back with whether or not they're able to even attempt to bill both. Im a tenured medic, I worked in a hospital, I know how to navigate this awful system. But even I hit a road block.
Such a well done short! I'm a 36yr old professional with no front teeth because of a significant facial trauma 2.5 years ago(Le Fort 1-3, et al). They fixed all the facial bones, but left me with exposed metal in my mouth and no teeth bones. I had to pay out of pocket to get the metal cut off sticking out of my gum later and gum sutured over it. Can't and probably wouldn't even do it if I could afford implants because that's robbery price (>$50,000)! I now have dentures which are pretty much crap as anterior partials. Still had to pay a decent amount for those.
I am so lucky to have an NHS dentist (yes, they still exist). I and my wife have both needed so much work done over the years, I can't imagine even attempting to pay for that.
This psychically hurt. I recent found out that an HMO plan is useless beyond a checkup, and not accepted by dentists who care about you. $429 to pull one wisdom tooth. I didn’t have a choice, the cavity was touching the nerve.
If you think that finding a dentist willing to lower their standards to participate with a crappy HMO plan is hard, wait until they make dental part of Medicare. Medicare reimbursements for several things are far below usual overhead for a dental practice. People will have insurance that nobody worth going to is going to take.
I got my wisdom teeth pulled for cheaper because we opted to use weak local anesthetic. Was not worth it, the whole process hurt like hell. Couldn’t afford the pain killers the prescribed me for after so I was in pain for the weeks. I say we made a choice, but it was really the only option.
Thank You for this insight. A thought I’ve had about costs and accessibility, but new info on how these costs historically became divided…. Appreciate you, Doctor!!!
Thank you for covering this! I used to be an insurance agent who sold Medicare Advantage and Medicare supplement policies and the entire way that dental coverage is structured is a joke.
I lived in Australia and Taiwan, where I was covered by their national insurance plans. It was amazingly wonderful! My first child was born in Australia under the oublic system, and we paid nothing out-of-pocket. My second child was born in Australia under the private system (an extra AUD120/month) so my ex-wife could have a private room. We paid only about USD550 out-of-pocket. Taiwan had tremendous health coverage, too. The hardest thing about coming back to the USA was dealing with and affording health care.
So from what I know about dentist from being friends with them, consistently calling teeth bones is something that would also get the ada to put more teeth in your mouth. Apparently they are "bone-like" and VERY different! I've not made that mistake around dental students again, lol
I shared shared shared… when he said teeth are luxury bones that only rich people are supposed to have… like glasses and mental health.. the sarcasm hit me so hard I was laughing and crying at the same time. I did a mental slow clap while shaking my head. True true… 😢
It's the same in Sweden. Dental care is free until you're 23 (it was until you were 18 iirc when I was that age back in 2001), but after that you have to pay full price up to equivilent of almost 300 USD, while other medical costs are subsidised regardless. And personally, at least when I was a kid, the regional dental care as a kid is not great when it comes to things that cost money; they never mentioned braces to me thoughout my whole childhood until the visit I had to pay out of pocket.
Same here in Norway, it's awful. We have free dental care until we're 18. There are some people who are exempt from paying, for instance disabled people, long time drug addicts who fit strict criteria, people of a certain age with certain incomes etc., but very few people fit the strict criteria for free dental care. It's horrendous. Why exclude TEETH from the body as if it's not health related!??? Wtf? Teeth/dental health are a vital part of everybody's health. Free, affordable and accessable healthcare shouldn't be able to exclude certain body parts. It makes zero sense.
Up to $300? That sounds heavenly compared to the US. Actually fixing my teeth was going to cost $13,000, and $3000 if I got dentures instead. And that's with insurance. It will not pay for root canals at all. Oh, and I am disabled--that's the insurance I'm using.
@@ZipplyZane oh compared to the US system I know we're lucky. But 300 and 3000 are practically the same amount when you can't afford to pay either. My teeth are crumbling in my mouth but I'm not going to the dentist because I can't afford it.
Those on Medicaid get taken too. They will only pay for a tooth removal. Though if you have oral cancer, some oral.surgeons who accept Medicaid can treat you cancers of the mouth. Other you have to see an ENT for your mouth cancers.
I have never heard of your channel til now and I think I will watch more. Kudos earned alone merely on the naming of your character Jimothy -- I wish I had thought of that for naming one of my kids back in the day!
