deniah

This is what I hate the most about US pricing: most of the time its completely opaque. They just say "do this" and expect you to go along and for your insurance to foot the bill.

On assignment in UK I visited a few LASIK clinics to see about the procedure. They happened to be these mega-factory lasik operations with visiting surgeons who pop in once or twice a week for a procedure and pop out.

At each I saw a tech for 5 minutes for prelim examination, and then passed on to "consultants" to finalize the deal. These were kids from the street absolutely clueless about the procedure, and trained to sell procedural options a la carte as if they were features on a car. "if you choose the Intralase option with Custom Lasik, we'll give you a package discount with no down payment". "I'm here to pay cash. By Custom do you mean what others call wavefront imagining, like local topographic correction, or is it something else?" "uhm...uhhh... let me check on that and get back to you"

And what these places wanted was 2x or 3x the price I received later. On my back home to repatriate in the states, I stopped by Vancouver for a short stop. Visited a clinic there and able to speak to operating surgeon about the procedure front to back. Extended the trip for a few days to get it done and it was the best outcome I could have had.

People back home were shocked I chose to do it "abroad" in Canada, as if it were a 3rd world country.

Nowadays I drive with the gf to Budapest pretty often. If needing any basic dental work, I just do it there. Their hours are extremely open, whereas its difficult to schedule something here in Vienna. And the cash price can be lower than post-insurance prices in Vienna, without the hassles of claim. Win win afaik.

travelinmanS

My wife is a European who lives in the USA. She went to a dentist in the USA for a painful tooth and was told she had no fewer than 8 cavities that needed immediate filling. A week later she flew back to her home country and visited a dentist there who laughed and said "maybe that dentist needed a new car". He gave her one filling and sent her on her way. We never go to dentists in the USA, worse than used car salesmen.

I do most of my dental stuff in Thailand. A cleaning is usually around $35 and a filling not much more. Dentists don't try to gouge you either.

sonofzeus

Foreign is cheaper because a patient has no recourse if the DDS harms them via malpractice.

Jaimito Cartero

And what percentage of US dental visits end up in a malpractice suit?

I've had way worse dental work at pricey US dentists that was bad. I've had good experiences in Mexico, Costa Rica and Indonesia.

And yeah, speaking of "Dental Vacations", you'll know that your foreign dentist won't be off killing Lions on your dough.

erik123

Foreign is cheaper because all healthcare is cheaper outside of the US. Malpractice cost only explains a small percentage of the variation in cost.

backprop

Perhaps this has been addressed already.

I find it interesting that dental procedures, by and large, are so expensive in the U.S. despite dental insurance being almost entirely upside-down from medical insurance. That is, high costs of medical care are often blamed on the "all you can eat" design of insurance - once you hit a maximum out of pocket cost, the rest is on the house.

There's a sort of logic to that reasoning. But dental insurance functions the opposite - it pays up until a point, then you're entirely on your own. The maximum out of pocket refers to the insurer's pocket. My own dental insurance, a 'gold' level company-provided plan, provides a maximum total of $1500 a year in services. Then the rest is on me.

jaymar01

Paul Krugman did an blog post on dental industry pricing in response to the dentist who paid a lot of money to shoot Cecil the lion.

His argument is the dental industry has faced little cost containment and quality improvement pressure due to the lack of coverage from the major health providers (Medicare and the national insurance companies).

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/201...the-game/?_r=0

sonofzeus

Absolutely. Healthcare outside the USA enjoys the same lower costs of doing business like the CSR centers and factories.

travelinmanS

Absolutely, that explains why countries with much cheaper health care like Germany and Sweden have all the low cost call centers and cheap labor factories

edvasquez

Budapest. It is a well known dental destination for Brits. My wife went and had veneers put in. $600 USD for something we were pricing out at $2k+. She set up the appt before arriving but after getting off the plane she literally went straight to the dentist, had the temps put in, and two days later had the permanent ones put in. Get this. Dentist did not want payment until the procedure was completed. The intake person spoke English and translated between wife and dentist. Two years later the veneers are still perfect. Budapest is pretty cheap to travel to from the US and housing (AirBnB, hotels) are very cheap too ($50USD a night).

best

Possibly the very best is Hungary, and especially Budapest. Modern, best training, more polite, excellent work, do not push unneeded work, reasonable prices, quick, etc.

DaveBlaine

THIS!

tatterdema

Yep, had my crowns done in Budapest for $150 each. My hotels were actually less than $50 a night (I went in off season), and the entire trip is tax deductible if the price falls below what you would pay in the US. On top of that, I brought back an itemized receipt, and my insurance reimbursed me for the work at the same rate they would have paid in the US, so the crowns actually cost me about $75 out of pocket. 10 years later and they are holding up fine.

thebakaronis

I came to this thread from a more recent thread on this topic.

I'm by turns amused, saddened and upset by the level of ignorance & bias displayed by some posters on this thread. I get all my dental work done locally in the US because I'm fortunate to have good dental insurance. If I didn't, I would most certainly wait to get all non-emergency work done while traveling abroad. Having lived in other countries, including the so-called "third world", I've had good medical care there, thank you very much. Sure there are incompetent doctors around the world. There are also unscrupulous hustlers abroad -- and in the US. Sure malpractice occurs, abroad and in the US. Never heard of surgeons at hospitals like Sloan Kettering removing the wrong kidney or leaving behind gauze in the stomach cavity of patients? Because in-built bias prevents us from seeing things we don't want to see. Cost does not necessarily equate to quality. Some of the best medical advice I've got have been from doctors who charge a pittance. And, conversely, many specialists in the US were not able to diagnose a medical condition I had that I ended up self-diagnosing later on very accurately. That doesn't mean doctors in the US are all crap and those abroad are great. On the contrary, my point is that there are good and bad doctors everywhere. Do your research. Use your common sense and your God-given brain. Drop this idiotic elitist attitude about the healthcare in the US. And when you find a good doctor, hold on to them, regardless of whether they're in Dakar or Jakarta or San Francisco.

Gringa