My ancient childhood dentist kept telling me as a child that I needed to replace my old amalgam filled (that he put in) with platinum posts! My current dentist says there never was nor is any need to do so.
It’s really upsetting and sad that there are bad apples which make folks have to keep having additional opinions and checks for dental work. It adds time and costs. 
My previous dentist continuously tried to upsell everything. He insisted I needed a $50 fluoride treatment. Next time he insisted I needed special antibiotics not covered by insurance. Everything he recommended never was covered by the insurance. I don t have dental insurance now so shopped around for lower cost dental clinics. Miraculously I don’t seem to need any of those expensive treatments anymore:)
I think we have the opposite problem: our dentist, who we’ve been going to for years, is too conservative! Or maybe I simply don’t listen closely enough. Prime example, he said that one of my back teeth, which had a large filling from when I was a kid, was getting iffy and needed a crown. I thought, yeah he just wants another anchor for his yacht! Well, less than a year later I was eating chips and salsa at a Mexican place and, crack!, one quarter of the tooth broke off. Of course, this happened on the weekend so I had to wait until the next week to get in. He looks at it and says I need a crown … but the crack extends below the gum line. Apparently, this is a big deal so I had to go to specialist for a *crown lengthening/i where they cut away the gum from around the tooth in question. Even the specialist wasn’t sure he could expose enough of the tooth for a crown and ended up cutting far more tissue away than originally thought – to the point where I needed several more numbing shots in the area during the procedure (it felt like paper cuts as he cut outside the original area).
Anyway, after that torture, the crown was a piece of cake. During that procedure, my dentist said that the tooth in front of the bad one also looked iffy due to an old large filling and I said, “take it out, too!”. The oral surgery was more expensive than the stupid crowns.
PS. One of my back teeth on the other side, again with an old large filling, is now feeling iffy to me (pain comes and goes). I’m going have my dentist give it a close look next time I’m there and get a crown if he expresses even a little bit of concern.
PPS. I’m one of those lucky weirdos who never developed wisdom teeth so I was spared that procedure in the past. I guess I’m paying for it now.
I went to my husband’s dentist in Queens in my early 30’s. I had some gum recession that no dentist had said anything about in the past. This dentist gave me a “gum treatment” that consisted of spraying water on my gums. He did not clean my teeth, and insisted that I would need several more “treatments” before he could do so. I went to my parents’ dentist instead — he had an office on Park Avenue in Manhattan. While he charged more per visit than the guy in Queens, seeing him wound up being much less expensive. (He did comment, after peering at my teeth, “Well, I’m not gonna make my first million off you!”)
Imagine being a “respected” and wealthy professional who spends every single day for decades committing criminal frauds and assaults on a dozen or more people.
I just recently left my dentist of almost 20 years. He was a new hire, fairly young at 30 when I started going to him. I liked his wait and see approach, never pushed. I told him that it was refreshing to have that and if he ever left I’d follow him. I followed him and took the kids with me, to his next job. Then, he finally got his own practice about 5 years ago, every single time I went for a cleaning there was something that needed to be done, I became very distrusting, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was for about the 10th time he asked if I wanted Invisalign braces for my bottom teeth. The first 4 teeth in front at the bottom are not perfectly straight across, but turned in a little. I kept telling him no, I wasn’t interested. You don’t see my bottom teeth when I speak or smile. He told me his daughter was going to Vanderbilt, I promised myself the next time he mentioned those dang braces I was leaving.
Well, he did, I told him my teeth don’t bother me (yet again) and at my age if I am going to spend money it would be on cosmetic surgery. He’s not my dentist anymore. He called and left a message asking me why.
When my dentist retired I went to the person who took over the practice. I hadn’t been to the dentist for a couple of years but I was still surprised at the amount of work she insisted I needed-over $11,000 ($10,000 out of pocket), including multiple crowns, a bite guard and fillings for teeth she said were going to be an emergency at any moment. I scheduled the most urgent work, but because of a medical issue had to put it off.
Fast forward six months and I realized that I still wasn’t having any problems with my teeth. I went for a second opinion to my kids’ family dentists who said I didn’t need a thing. 5 years later and I still haven’t had any work done.
My H and I have very good teeth. I have one filling and one crown. Every time I go to the dentist he says that he can go months without seeing teeth as nice as mine.
I always thought it was strange that both of my kids have terrible teeth, multiple fillings every time they go and both have had root canals. I was starting to get really worried about my d especially, what was she doing for her teeth to rot like this!
Now, I’m wondering if it’s the dentist and not the teeth. My D has really good dental insurance.
One of the reasons I like my dentist so much is because I don’t feel she’s trying to gouge me like previous dentists I’ve had. In fact, she said my teeth were in good enough shape that only coming in once a year would be good enough unless there was some kind of problem.
There’s no way I could be a dentist. The idea of sticking my fingers in people’s mouths all day…ick.
Way back when, general dentists didn’t perform root canals or remove teeth. Oral surgeons did that. So there was less incentive to over-treat because you were just referring your patient to someone else.
But over time there was less to do for general dentists so they started to branch out into other procedures. Now they will perform the procedure which creates the possible incentive to over-treat.
I think at least one factor in these incentives is the increased cost of undergrad and dental school. Graduate with couple hundred thousand in debt and there will be pressure to increase revenues. This likely is an extreme case but I suspect that other dentists have done/are doing the same thing but on a much smaller scale. Also doubt its limited to dentists.
The dentist I complained about before wanted me to extract my wisdom teeth which I have room for in my mouth, are in straight and have never caused me any issues. When I told him that if I needed to have that done, I would be seeing an oral surgeon, he suddenly stopped telling me they had to be removed.
In my teens, my mom’s dentist told her that my brother and I have deep grooves in our teeth and needed them all drilled out and filled. He told her he didn’t believe in sealants (a proven treatment even back then.) I had to go every two weeks and get a 1/4 of my jaw filled.
Now I have a mouth full of fillings that have slowly required replacements and/or crowns. I really trust no dentists. Kind of sucks…
Back in the recession my dentist was hit hard and for several years. He said it was the craziest thing. He either had patients who let their care go for so long that they needed crowns or other major work, or he was performing expensive cosmetic work. He was genuinely upset for the patient’s state of health that he had to perform as much major work as he did, rather than getting to the problem earlier and just filling cavities.
I would never want to be a dentist, but just looking at all the stuff kids (and adults) are eating these days (sour/gooey sugary candies/drinks), I think career prospect in dentistry is only going to grow bigger!
@melvin123
My dentist works probono once a week at a free clinic and he said it is not uncommon to have young adults in their 30s losing all their teeth due to poor hygiene/care. Sad.
Poor hygiene? Maybe. Meth is one big reason of tooth loss at a younger age.
When my dentist retired I tried a new one. He said that I should consider getting my crowns replaced due to their age. When the hygenist was looking at my xrays she was absolutely fascinated with my crowns and asked all kinds of questions - how many trips did they take, how did they do this or that (none of which I knew the answer to). She said they were by far the best crowns she had ever seen - which did not instill much confidence for her boss’ opinion that he should replace them. Needless to say, I declined and here we are 10 years later with no issues!
I have a crown in my mouth that is 26 years old. 10 years ago our dentist was very eager to replace it due to its advanced age… I decided to wait. Still waiting.
I think the so popular nowadays 3D printed, one visit crowns are made from ceramics inferior to those used in the past. My husband had 2 of these new tech crowns fail (broke into pieces) conveniently shortly after the warranty expired on them.
My hygienist mentioned that I had some gum recession that was problematic and showed me a whole video about a new method to address this that doesn’t require grafting. Apparently the dentist at the practice had just done some training in it and had started performing it in the past few months. I did some research and learned that the success rate was not nearly as high as the video portrayed it to be and when I came back I declined. Miraculously, I have been to the dentist several times since then and they have not said anything about my gum recession being a problem. ?
I am a doctor not dentist but this is common in all fields. New technology being pushed on young doctors stating it’s an improvement to care. Sometimes yes and sometimes no. I was also a surgical residency director and all the young residents want to try the latest techniques /toys. Some good and some bad but all expensive. My answer to all of this to them is “what would you do or how would you perform this surgery without this device?”
Usually by doing the techniques that has always been done without adding thousands of dollars to a surgery just for the chance to make an equipment manufacture rich.
Saying that, there are new techniques and approaches to medicine that are more expensive but do work well and save patients money in the long run.
Also sorry to say this but medicine is a business like any other. Still have to pay the rent, employees etc like any other also. But medicine is also regulated and fees cut like no other, so doctors are looking for different ways to increase lost revenue. It’s no longer if your good you will be financially successful.
My internist and I talk about this every visit. He is like 40. They have to start to do small procedures in the office for no other reason but to make up lost revenue. Most aren’t trained to do it either. So be wary when your pcp all of the sudden wants to do X instead of referring you out. Now you know the reason why.