Dentists

[TimberWolf]

I've just paid £42.00 for 7 a minute check-up and polish, or £6/minute. Good money if you can get it.

Okay some of that cost covers overheads such as the ugly receptionists talking about jackets and whatnot, but it still seems excessive. Doctors and dentists seem to have done well under labour.

Is this a typical cost?

[KathyWoolfe]

I've just paid £42.00 for 7 a minute check-up and polish, or £6/minute. Good money if you can get it.

Okay some of that cost covers overheads such as the ugly receptionists talking about jackets and whatnot, but it still seems excessive. Doctors and dentists seem to have done well under labour.

Is this a typical cost?

Yes, it is a typical cost.
I once got charged £200 for root canal work - and that was the NHS cost, I queried it and was told that non-NHS charges for that kind of work was £600+

Dentists are the only medical practitioners who charge for NHS treatment as far as I know

[cailin maith]

I've just paid £42.00 for 7 a minute check-up and polish, or £6/minute. Good money if you can get it.

Okay some of that cost covers overheads such as the ugly receptionists talking about jackets and whatnot, but it still seems excessive. Doctors and dentists seem to have done well under labour.

Is this a typical cost?

Yes - after my trip yesterday I am £50 less off and after seeing the hygenist, I will be £120 quid less off.... grim

[rootsnall]

Get yourself an NHS dentist ! Mine went private but finding a new one wasn't that hard. If your teeth are OK I wouldn't even bother going for a check up, wait until it hurts.

[oracleslave]

I paid something similar for a while to see a chiropracter. Sometimes I was in and out in 5 min and £40 poorer for the 'pleasure'

Cue comment re the innuendo

[cailin maith]

Get yourself an NHS dentist ! Mine went private but finding a new one wasn't that hard. If your teeth are OK I wouldn't even bother going for a check up, wait until it hurts.

Can't find one at all in my area who is taking on NHS patients....

[PAH]

I have dental insurance but still have to pay hundreds for treatment. It's getting like solicitors and other professions where there is a monopoly going on causing prices to stay high.

Just try finding a NHS dentist. They're the same ones doing private work so they're obviously going to go for whatever pays the most.

My only comfort is knowing I'm only paying a pittance in national insurance.

[Xenophon]

I paid something similar for a while to see a chiropracter. Sometimes I was in and out in 5 min and £40 poorer for the 'pleasure'

Cue comment re the innuendo

As requested:

Oo-er, you said 'pleasure'. *snigger* *giggle*

[rootsnall]

Can't find one at all in my area who is taking on NHS patients....

Try harder !? I know when mine went private it meant there was then a pot of money available for local NHS dentistry and in theory a new one will open or an exisiting one expand to pick up the slack. Look around in the rougher areas in your neck of the woods, at my new one the dentists are polish, chinese etc but seem good.

[KathyWoolfe]

Can't find one at all in my area who is taking on NHS patients....

Up here in the land of the Scot it is virtually impossible to find an NHS dentist. I travel 80 miles from Edinburgh to Ayr for my dental treatment because of this as once you HAVE found one it's best to stay with them wherever you live....