Dentist Zeidler buys practice from retiring dentist Lund and finds what appears to be massive overtreatment by the previous dentist. An example would be performing root canals in 90% of cases, versus the more typical 3-7% of cases.
Zeidler also informed the patients, some of whom sued Lund. Lund was also arrested and is being prosecuted for criminal charges of insurance fraud.
The article also has paragraphs about the limited amount of evidence-basis for dental treatment recommendations.
I think it is common for many dentists to overtreat (fraud) clients. Maybe not to the extent here but it definitely happens. I’ve had a couple dentists I’ve fired over the years who seem to run up the bill wanting to be very aggressive. With each relocation we made, it took awhile to find a dentist who took a more “wait and see” approach.
I’ve had 2 dentists like that since I moved to the US. The first told me my crowns (I have terrible teeth) needed replacing. i just assumed they did but he quoted a price then when he found out the crowns were done in England where they do them slightly differently, he doubled it. I thought that seemed outrageous and went elsewhere to get a 2nd quote for replacing them. He said “well I could give you a quote, but why do you want to replace them? There’s nothing wrong with them” . He was my dentist for several years. When he retired the new younger dentist that he brought on to take over kind of gave me the creeps and was also very very pushy about expensive procedures so I went elsewhere.
Was this about my dentist? I actually trusted him and accepted his recommendations for years, until I started talking to other patients of his who complained about him always trying to get them to have a crown or some other service. I now say no to everything, but how are you supposed to know when you really need it?
He “found” two cavities in my then 19 year old daughter. She complained that she had pain in that tooth and he recommended a crown. We refused. Three years later he said she had two more cavities. Because she was staying in another city over the summer, she found a dentist there that would fill them. Our dentist just had to send the X-rays. Turns out the cavities were under the other two cavities because he never filled them correctly!
I left for another dentist, but that dental hygienist didn’t clean my teeth properly because she was mad at me because I wouldn’t elect to do an expensive service they recommended.
A dentist friend once explained to me that dentistry is actually a very boring field and that once you master one thing, you want to do something a little bit different, so you buy some new gadget and get training on it. Then you have to pay off the expensive new gadget and so you start up upselling to your patients. This was at a party and he was a bit tipsy, but this makes perfect sense to me.
I had a wonderful dentist for years but the dentist that took over his practice when he retired was awful. He tried to tell my then 16 year old that she needed expensive teeth whitening before her senior pictures or she would look terrible. He also tried to up sell my husband on a bunch of expensive procedures. I HATE that!
Our relative who is a dentist loves people and providing quality care at fair prices. He is pretty conservative and would never think of upselling anyone, though he keeps up on the latest.
My other relative who is also a dentist wishes he could do something else other than dentistry to bring in the same income and does side gigs whenever he can.
We prefer not to get dental services from relatives but do like our current dentist and her hygienists.
I’ve had bad dental experiences in the past and avoided going for years. As an adult I wonder how much of my grade school/high school dental work was really necessary. I didn’t trust that dentist but was a kid with parents who went along with whatever was recommended without a second opinion.
I recently had to go due to pain and have some extractions (which I knew were necessary). The dentist was nice, and had many recommendations for my mouth, which are all likely necessary as I have terrible teeth. The interesting thing to me was how quick they offer to have you apply for credit so you can get a bunch of work done right away. I told them I will be paying cash and will only have work done when I have money to do it. They weren’t pushy, wish I appreciated, but I can’t help but have this lingering mistrust from the past carry forward.
My current dentist has staff all quite aware of any dental coverage on medical or dental insurance. They will try to adjust scheduling for maximum coverage—e.g. where the procedure needs to be done in the next 12 months but the patient reaches the max dental payment in year 1, they may make some of the appointments in year 1 and others in year 2.
That seems thoughtful and mindful to me (even though our medical plan has no max dental payment in any particular year. We have always paid in full after our insurance pays their portion and never gotten credit to pay for any medical or dental bills.
@VeryHappy , most people don’t realize their work is boring until they have been doing it for a while! And I imagine that dental school is probably pretty interesting. It’s just that doing the same thing over and over again gets dull.
Oh, this happens a lot. One of my kids went to the dentist right before leaving for a semester abroad, and dentist said she had 4 cavities that needed filling. Kid didn’t have time to get it done, so dentist sent her with special RX fluoride toothpaste. Kid lost toothpaste and had to see a dentist abroad to get more - that dentist said NO cavities. We got a 2nd opinion at our university faculty clinic when she got home. Yup, no cavities. We filed a complaint with the state dental board, but nothing happened to the dentist.
We have been using our dentist for more than 10 years, we actually were his first few patients as he was starting up as a new dentist. We obviously like him. What I do notice, is he is venturing into cosmetic dentistry more, I guess it is where the money is. I have had him putting veneer on my front teeth (I would not have them again as the difference is minimal). Now we just go to see him twice a year for cleaning and his hygienist is very nice. We also never do fluoride treatment and would only do x-ray about every five years. He is ok with these. So I guess he is a keeper.
I had been to our dentistry school for cheap dental care when I was a student without dental insurance. The dentist-in-training would be “learning to clean” my teeth. And just the measurements of the gum gaps could take an hour! I think looking at people’s mouth all day long must be horrible. It definitely is not for me!
6 - very true. Our former dentist would send a newsletter that their practice got a new and exciting piece of equipment or that he got trained in something new. The next visit he would aggressively recommend the whatever procedure the new thing did. Luckily for me, I am well versed in diagnostics, so after a couple of my questions that he had no clue how to answer, he would stop pushing those recommendations.
Seems like a patient could do some level of “trust, but verify” for some things.
For example, if a cavity is found, ask to see the X-ray showing the cavity or the probe sticking in the cavity. Actually, the patient should not need to ask, since a good dentist will do that anyway.
My example isn’t as egregious as the posted story, but when DW and I recently traveled to Thailand one of our objectives was to replace our dental fillings as had been suggested by our US dentist. The cost in Thailand would have been a small fraction of the stateside cost, but the Thai dentists assured us that our fillings were fine, and that replacement was unnecessary.
Yup, my previous dentist was pushing for filling replacement. I switched dentists for unrelated reasons — new one says they are fine. I’m at the point where I want a second opinion on most any dental work.