Dental costs – Brits who put less money where their mouth is - Independent
Dental costs – Brits who put less money where their mouth is - Independent
It's light years away from any dentist's waiting room I have ever been in. There's an espresso coffee machine, soft leather designer furniture and big LED screens. The only familiar item is a well-thumbed copy of Reader's Digest, but there's something different about this too: it's this month's issue and not years out of date. So just where is this distinctly modern dentist's waiting room? Just off the fashionable Kings Road in Chelsea? No, it's in a sleepy suburb of Hungary's capital, Budapest. Nevertheless, the waiting room at the Vital Europe clinic is chock-full of Britons eager to save perhaps thousands of pounds on their dental work. The last available figures, for 2006, show that around 35,000 Brits travelled abroad to get dental work done, from braces and crowns to multiple implants. The main destinations of choice were in Eastern Europe – Hungary, Poland, Croatia and Bulgaria. But countries such as Thailand also featured. This is against the backdrop of an NHS dental care system that is patchy at best and downright poor at worst. An estimated two million British people can't find an NHS dentist and are forced to go private. And going private can be expensive: check-ups cost around £50 a time, a porcelain crown will set you back some £700 and something more complex, such as an implant, can cost upwards of £2,000 a tooth. No wonder that research from the British Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry (BACD) reveals that less than half of the UK population visit their dentists regularly. Even when someone can find an NHS dentist, the service they receive may not be of a high standard. A more legitimate comparison will be looking at the treatment between private practice in the UK and Eastern Europe." I met Susan Wenden, 60, from Lyne in Surrey, in the Budapest waiting room of Vital Europe, which also offers consultation and treatment in London. Ms Wenden has done the maths on where she should have her teeth looked at. I needed one doing after having an emergency extraction," she explains. That is when I researched going overseas."I had a consultation with Vital Europe in London and agreed to fly out to Hungary. I was seen all the way through by the same dentist. I was a little unsure but my husband came too and we made a week of it. Vital Europe reckons it is treating around 200 patients a month from the UK and is considering opening another consultation room in Manchester. For those who don't want to fly abroad just for the sake of their teeth, there is the option of having the treatment done in London by Hungarian dentists, who are registered to work with the UK's General Dental Council (GDC). That will cost around 20 per cent more than going to Budapest, but the total savings on UK treatment can still be considerable. The key difference is in staff expenses. We have offices in the UK so we know how much practitioners charge and it's way over the odds, but the cost of living is so high," says Paula Szorfi, marketing manager at Vital Europe. This keeps overheads down." But for complex treatments such as implants, Ms Szorfi advises people to make the trip out to Hungary. Coming here reduces any unnecessary delays." And this is a bustling industry, with 14 dentists and 11 hygienists, as well as a dozen or so laboratory workers producing the casts and enamelling behind the scenes. What's more, they have to spend three years as a junior in a practice – a little like the period spent being a junior doctor in a hospital." "The truth is, the UK is just plain expensive. The reverse is true," says Mr Qureshi at the BACD. Teaching and training are now so advanced that we are a centre of excellence – we have people from America come over to learn our techniques." Mr Qureshi has concerns about patients going abroad. What will you do in Poland, Bulgaria or Hungary?" Insurers seem to share some of his misgivings. Generally they won't finance treatment abroad. But such issues do not worry Ms Wenden as she sits in the waiting room at Vital Europe. But then my husband went over after he was quoted £5,500 in the UK for just two implants, and he had a good experience. So I thought, why not?"Lynne has been out to Budapest twice for treatment and has had work done on a grand total of 17 teeth. We have toured all around the city and we are off to Vienna for a few days before my final treatment. It will be good if they can open an office in Scotland to make it more convenient." Interesting?
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