BC Dental Association advises BC snowbirds to weigh before they pay…
BCDA Media release Oct 13, 2011
British Columbians planning to winter in Arizona or California may see Mexican dental clinics as a cheaper way to meet their dental care needs. The British Columbia Dental Association (BCDA) provides insights and recommendations to support patients in making informed dental care decisions, and encourages them to weigh the pros and cons before proceeding.
A May 25, 2011 article in The Vancouver Sun stated that “Canadians are flocking to Mexico for tooth care”. “I don’t know if 12,000 Canadians represents a “flock”, says Dr. Hank Klein, president of the BCDA, “but I do know that in 35 years, I have seen a few patients in my practice who have gone to Mexico or other countries for dental work. Based on what I’ve seen, and the reports of our members, sometimes the work is fine, but when it goes wrong, it really seems to go wrong.”
Mr. Robin Atchison of Vancouver would agree, “I’m 60 years old and I don’t have dental insurance. Based on the experience of some friends I did some research online and interviewed a clinic in Cancun. I went down there with two broken teeth and one cavity, which was not a big deal, but my experience was awful!
“I ended up with two caps, one on the wrong tooth, and the one with the cavity completely untouched, and a bridge over five of my upper teeth. The bridge was sitting too high in my mouth which I tried to get them to fix while I was down there, but all they would offer is to glue it in place. To make matters worse, they put the caps on without freezing – I have never been in such pain. So now I need a lot of work to fix the mess they made of my mouth which is going to cost me a lot more than if I had just had the original work done here from the beginning.”
“Mr. Atchison’s case is all too familiar to me,” says Dr. Glenn Van As of North Vancouver. “When you see a patient’s mouth after this type of ‘treatment’ it is very disheartening for me as a clinician. It was difficult to repair the damage that had been done in Mexico to Mr. Atchison’s teeth. Tremendously over prepared teeth, and a poor fitting final restoration all meant that extensive work had to be done to try and save the teeth. It was a huge mess indeed.
“Regarding costs, I think that fundamentally patients in Canada are used to our public health care system that is heavily subsidized by our taxes. When they have to pay out-of-pocket for dental care (whether they have dental insurance or not), they are sometimes surprised by the costs.
“Dentists are surgeons who have invested a minimum of seven, and up to ten years of education after high school. We require surgical operatories in each office, professional staff that are well paid, and we pay rent and business taxes in locations that are convenient to our patients.
“In Canada, we also use high quality materials, state-of-the-art infection control procedures and dental labs that charge us directly for their products and services. That mix can be costly. Do we also make a good living? I hope so. I have no pension so after my costs, what I earn has to cover myself and my family in my retirement. The costs I incurred for my university training (close to $250,000 now at UBC), mandatory ongoing continuing education, setting up a practice in the Lower Mainland and living here can be prohibitively expensive. In my opinion, the fees for dental treatments are in line with the costs of delivering the care.”
“I discovered in 2009 that I needed a fair bit of dental work,” says Karin Janzen of Salmon Arm. “The quote seemed high on our retirement budget so I held off. My husband and friends had dental work in Mexico and were very happy with it. The prices were remarkably less. So, in February 2011, a friend recommended a Mexican clinic and I decided to go to nearby Los Algodones, a border town that exists mainly for dental tourism. It was clean, professional and appeared to have all the latest high-tech equipment so I felt I was in good hands. The dentist recommended a surprising amount of work but since I had been neglecting things for a while I wasn’t overly surprised. The total estimate was $4,860 which included eight crowns, considerably less money than in Canada, but I proceeded with only half the work this year.
“Back home, everything seemed fine but my gums had a very sensitive spot. I went to my Canadian dentist only to discover there are multiple problems with the Mexican work. I now need a lot more expensive dental work done to repair them. What a ‘bargain’!”
“I was very concerned when Mrs. Janzen returned to our practice with an excessive amount of unnecessary work done, and of very poor quality,” says Dr. Gerry Chu. “When we diagnosed her dental treatment in 2009, she needed a single crown buildup and crown on a molar that had lost a large filling. When she returned to us in 2011, she had four crowns and three root canals – all of poor quality to the point where she may require bone grafting and implants to replace two of the teeth that were ‘treated’ at the Mexican clinic.”
The BCDA recognizes that dental procedures can go wrong in Canada too. BC residents can seek recourse in many ways, directly with their dentist, with the BCDA, or ultimately with a formal complaint to the College of Dental Surgeons of BC. In other countries, the oversight, complaint process and license requirements of dentists may not be the same, so recourse for problems can be vague or non-existent, especially for non-residents.
The BCDA encourages all dental patients to ask questions and create a good rapport with their dentist as a health care provider. “As representatives of the dentists of BC, we hope that patients will make truly informed decisions on their dental treatment – wherever they get their work done,” says Dr. Klein. “We want BC dental patients to receive the highest quality care possible.”
Ref: British Columbia Dental Association