Not sure why dentists do as well as GPs – that's a tougher and more important job isn't it? I don't go to dentists anyway….

I suppose the barriers to entry to become a dentist are high so supply and demand means they can charge more. So the answer is to train more dentists right?

@coffeeking

random comma's are, the future of, gra,mmer. As is mis-use of hyphens and pour spelling.

You kind of miss the point to what I was saying . . .

just pointing out that after 7 years of study there is a fairly hefty bill to pay, hence the costs

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There are countries in the world where ALL health care and education is free. Why not here ?

I know a recently graduated dentist who actually has less take-home pay than I do

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All workers are cogs in the machine of society and as such should be of equal worth.

What we have is wrong and is not working. People should aspire to live well,rather than live better.

Almost anyone can be trained to drop the oil on your car, swap the airfilter and put some new oil in. That's why your car is almost always going to be service by the apprentice, whilst the mechanics get on with drinking tea and trying to diagnose more complicated problems.

On the other hand, not many can be trained to be doctors or dentists. That's why they get paid more.

@stan Because the education isn't free, it's paid for by taxes rather than directly. It doesn't matter how you fund it, you can't have jobs that have totally different study, time an learning efforts paid the same amount as we would end up with no-one doing them.

jeez is this thread still going?! 🙄

2 points i'd like to make as a dentist

1) Dentistry from a patients side isnt exactly rocket science. The majority of dental disease (excluding stuff like trauma or developmental problems) is entirely preventable by the patients by actually brushing / cleaning properly and following some simple diet advice. Have a look at http://www.gumsmart.co.uk .
If everyone did this there'd be a lot less work for dentists to do, and they would be earning less! I see a lot of intelligent people who come to me as patients and despite giving them preventative advice every time they still pay no attention and wonder why they always need work doing. Would you moan on if you did no maintenance on a car / bike and wondered why it needed fixing after a while?

2) if you're NHS (as i am 99.9%) then all fees are set by the NHS / D of H. Regardless of how long your treamment takes (be it 10 mins or an hour) it will fall into a band specified by the NHS and we cant alter it, so if you dont like the prices and are treated on the NHS dont moan at the dentist, complain to your MP.

I agree there is some unfairness in prices, eg if you need 1 filling that takes 20 mins you'd pay the same price as someone who needs 10 fillings and 6 appointments. BTW we get paid once for each of those cases, so its unfair on us too – i'll get 45.60 (+ a slight top up from the NHS) for spending 4-5 hours on someone with a lot of work to do as i would on someone who needs 1 filling.

HTH 🙂

meeeeee

Have I read that right? Are you seriously saying that you get paid the same for 1 treatment ie. 1 filling, as you do for someone who needs 10 ?

If so, you really need to get someone to represent your professional body properly re fee negotiation.

I would respectfully suggest the same guys who negotiated the GP contract to be top of the list 😉

Do you not read the papers? There's been a big ruckus since the new charging system came in. And I'm not a dentist, or even someone who goes to one that regularly!

I can see some of the point – there are some economies of scale, only mixing one batch of amalgam etc, only one meeting with the receptionist, pleasantries, getting them strapped down to the chair, only one lot of anaesthetic. But equally, doing 3 fillings still doesn't take the same time as 1.

woody + tron

yeah thats how it works, although economies of scale arent really correct because it takes multiple appointments and you cant really mix up a huge vat of filling material and do it in one marathon session. I've got a few patients on methadone who need nearly every tooth in the mouth filling + root canal work, which will take about 8 hours work, and i get 45.60 (well actually its £60 incuding the NHS top up)! But then i can get the same fee for a quick 20 minute filling on someone else. I guess its supposed to average out. However, the problem is that it actually penalises patients with well cared for mouths who maybe only need 1 filling replacing now and again – they'll pay 45.60 just for that, in the old system they would have paid about 10 quid for a filling.

What you should do is only notice that 1 needs filling each visit 😉

(actually, more skilled imo) than accountants, lawyers or engineers

I'll give you the first two, but drilling a few holes and filling them or getting the pliers out vs. building bloody great bridges to support water, vehicles or a combination thereof? Come on.

meeeee

In that case I'm not surprised that many of your colleagues only do private work and practices in 'better areas' do very well, as even the NHS work will be more profitable.

I occassionally question whether the £27 a month I pay for private cover is worth it…….until I work out the premiums paid against treatment costs and realise I am still about 3 years 'in credit' 😆

Woody – another 'interesting' thing about the new system is that the fees paid to the dentist are not uniform across England.

Dentists are now paid according to how many 'units' they do. A filling works out at 3 units (and as explained above 10 flgs also work out at a total of 3 units) Each unit is given a monetary value (here it is £20) The patient pays 45.60 for a flg and then the NHS tops this up so the total is 3 units or for me 3*20

The interesting bit is that i used to work in a big city with a dental taching hospital and LOT of NHS practices and no one was really forced to have private treatment. When i worked there, each unit was worth about £25.

I now work in an area which is nearly all private, and we opened an NHS practice after getting the local health authority to provide some funding. However, the value per unit for this area (with a huge shortage of NHS practices and people travelling 30+ miles to come see us) is less at £20.5! Similar stories in other predominately private areas. And the powers that be wonder why there is still a shortage of dentists in these 'lower value unit' areas, even though there is actually more need for them! ( i moved to my current area for better quality of life – more biking and climbing 🙂 )

I know of practices who receive as little as £18 per unit, and others that are paid £27. Obviously when you are doing several thousand units the differences add up to significant amount.