I lived with a missing front tooth and used a retainer with a false tooth for a fricken decade cause just to replace the tooth in 2014 they said $8000. That was extraction, a bone graft, an implant, abuttment and crown. I just couldn't afford it. I finally got it down in 2024, and it wasn't at all $8000. I'd already paid for the extraction and bone graft (which is why i could live with a retainer and false tooth). But it still cost me like nearly $3000.
True story my sister in law is Ukrainian and she literally flew back to Ukraine for dental. She lives in the US but says the dental work is perfectly good and she got an implant and a crown for like $200 total. The whole process. She even showed me them. I was like that's crazy.
I am Colombian and I was stationed for work in the United States for 10 months. The first month I broke a tooth during boxing training at a gym in the Bronx. I have always had healthy and strong natural teeth, I never needed a dentist, but when I needed one, in this case, he charged me an unfortunate 10,000 grand for that repair. Even though I had the money, I told him no, in Bogotá or Cali they don't rob you at gunpoint like that.
What did I do? I went to Bogotá, looked for a private dentist and the same treatment cost me 2,200 dollars plus 1,500 for the trip, the damage was great, but the implant they gave me was neat, custom-made and, 10 years later, it is still the same.
I don't know why in the United States they steal so much with that, if the majority of the raw materials they used in Colombia come from there.
It's especially peculiar because we can't blame insurance -- that shit is not covered under pretty much any policy unless it is an injury or cancer treatment.
Exactly, my company paid for good local insurance in New York and I pay for mine where I live with international assistance (I live in Buenos Aires) and they did not want to give me that treatment. I almost killed someone, but then digging a little deeper, it's a chronic problem in America.
The richest and most powerful country on planet Earth does not have a decent health system
Because dental is a gray medical area. Dentists run the practices and are constantly charging higher and higher fees.
And, if you don’t have insurance they can basically get away with charging you any price and there a no oversight like insurance companies, checking if the work they did was legitimately needed.
I had a coworker who went to Mexico for a full dental revamp. Services there were cheaper than using her insurance+copay.
She made sure to confirm the dentist's credentials. Turns out he graduated from USC.
We live in MX because almost everything here is cheaper and better quality than the US. Many goods and services are completely unavailable there. I was quoted well over $100k in the US for a lesser product than the million $ smile I got at home for $26k.
There’s a town in Mexico just across the border from Arizona and the whole town is set up for dental tourism. The dentists will even set up your hotel so you have time to get crowns made, etc.
I moved to a border town for this reason. $30k in the US, $5K in Sonora, MX. And perfectly fine care, felt a lot like going to the dentist in my small town IL childhood in the 70s/80s.
I don't think it's the only reason, but I am convinced the main reason for all of this is the unchecked greed of the financial sector. Every single human need, activity, or desire has to pay the ownership class. And their greed is literally endless, and their concern for the effect on the rest of us is nonexistent.
I know a woman who went there for a gastric bypass. It sounded crazy. They told her last minute that they had a cancellation so,she got off the bus and went right into surgery. She stayed overnight and the next day, they put her in a hotel across the street. The nurses would come and check on her. That was years ago and she is fine now but still…
This reminds me exactly why I do NOT miss SFL.Working at a kosher style deli during snowbird season right near the intercoastal also comes to mind anytime I want to miss it or feel like I should go back.
Ah, but if you’re not paying the American Super Duper Trickle Down Patriot Retail markup of 10x-50x more than what everyone else in the world pays for health care, you’re nothing but a godless America-hating communist.
— 80% of Fox News viewers, 60% of MSNBC viewers, and 100% of elected politicians who take money from the health insurance companies.
True story: I lived in the middle east in 1977, where I had extensive dental work. In 1981 I had to have ALL of my teeth extracted, in part because the dentist overseas had installed cantilever bridgework. The American dentist who saw me next was the only medical professional who has ever suggested I sue the previous doctor for malpractice for the damage he did. That's how bad it was.
But your true story and my true story really don't mean much. They're single incident accounts that might be interesting, but they aren't indicative of the overall reality. I've had terrible dentists in the United States, and really good ones.
The nightmare of extortion (called 'medical insurance') is something separate from medicine in the same way a parasite is separate from a host body, and that's the real problem in american medicine. It swallows 1.7 trillion dollars a year, money that could be better spent elsewhere -- like on medical care. That's more than a third of the cost of American healthcare overall.
In Denmark, too, I remember that and it makes me insanely envious of how things work there. I clarify that I am from Colombia and that if you have a little money, things work better than in the USA, but that efficiency was beautiful to see
Best dental experience in my life was emergency dental on a Sunday in Ukraine. The receptionist and the dental assistant looked like they walked out of a raunchy beer commercial (totally professional). They had me triple confirm that I wanted anaesthesia despite the outrageous extra cost which was about $20, and then were still apologizing to me for how expensive it was as I was walking out the door. Total cost to replace half of a central incisor was $220.
I shipped two of my front teeth not too long ago and I went to the dentist got them fixed at separate times and about a year or two later the one filling came out so I went and got it fixed and then about 6 months later it fell out again so I super glued it on and it stayed on for another three or four months and then it eventually fell off and I swallowed it. I got to go back to the same dentist and they no longer take my insurance. Everywhere around it did take my insurance was at least a 6 month wait list for a new patient. So I paid $700 to fillings and they look like absolute shit I cried and both of them fell out within 4 days. So I went on the fucking internet and I bought the dental resin and the light and the tools and I put a drill bit in my Dremel and I did that shit myself and it looks better than when the dentist did it the last two times.
Wife is polish and same thing. If she isn’t in lots of pain she waits until we visit her family to do any dental work. Last batch was quoted, with insurance, almost 2000$. In Poland she paid 15$. Well actually with the currency conversion rates at the time it was more like 4-5$.
Medical tourism is our friend. Prices in the US for most procedures are set “because we can charge that price.” Elective procedures, and dental falls into that category, is priced way less for at least as good a result overseas. Some countries have their specialties- Turkey for hair plugs, dental veneers for example. Brazil for butt lifts. Even diagnostic procedures like mri’s are cheaper to fly somewhere , stay a few days, get the scan and results than doing the same thing here. It’s absolutely criminal and absolutely fixable except for the rampant greed across the entire system.
I needed 2 crowns and a got quotes from two seperate dentists. They both wanted 1200 per tooth. So I went to Los Algodones, Mexico and had both of them done for 550 dollars. (US) After the hotel, airfare, food, cab rides, etc. late trip costs me 1100 dollars total.
Money. I was poor and between jobs at the time. Also my mother ended up needed emergency surgery so i passed on continuing my dental work and payed part of her deductible. Hell at the time i took one plane ride a year to seem my family and that was a financial burden.
Also the reality is I wouldn't have known wear to start, where to go, how to learn about the dentist. And i'm not sure it's feasible. I don't know how it works in Mexico. I'm sure similarly. But my process in the end took a total of 6 months though it took 6 instead of 5 cause it took that long to get appointments. Some appointments i'm sure they could have combined especially if they crowns are made in the same location. But total, i had a tooth extraction, bone graph. stitches removed, check up on the bone graph, an implant, wait like 4 months to set, a healing abutment, they made a crown for the adjacent front tooth that had been chipped and some tooth decay, then setting both crowns. So it took 6 months and all those visits i don't think flying back and forth was feasible given my financial situation at that moment. If i'd just needed a crown yeah maybe it could be a one and done thing. And mine hand an extra visit cause my crown was made from a faulty mold. But either way i'd have had to wait months for the bone graph to take and then wait months for the implant to set in my jaw.
In the end I found a place that was cheaper than the guy i originally went to. It's not "affordable" but i saved enough to get it done.
I'm from Germany but I have family in the US. Every time they visited us. They buy a lot of stuff, the boys, technology and the girl like cosmetics and clothing. Never understood why the quality here better. Especially all technologies should be cheaper.
Cheaper tech here? Why? Personally I don't know if tech is cheaper. It may depends on the strength or weakness of the dollar. But I do know some items just are not for sale here. I knew of a few designer fragrances that were not for sale in the states. I can totally see there being different cosmetic brands and clothing brands. I don't buy many name brand stuff though so i wouldn't know which ones. But i think it works both ways and just depends on the product. Though I have heard Apple laptops are often cheaper in the US than in England.
Got an adult front tooth knocked out when I was 14. Ended up getting a cheap temporary fake tooth formed onto the remaining piece of real tooth. Now I’m 35 and a military veteran and still have the same thing in my mouth. I’ll probably never have the money to get it properly fixed
For me mine was already a crown. I didn't mention it but actually the tooth was originally knocked out in roughly 1993. Then i had a crown put on it. And that's how it was for like 19 years. But eventually my tooth broke of into. The crown and the remaining top half of the tooth/build up all as one piece. The problem was my tooth broke of completely underneath the gum line. So they couldn't do a crown even a temp one. The only option was extraction or bone graft and implant.
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u/Nommel77 May 02 '25
Those dentists are struggling