My good friend is a dentist. He’s extremely ethical. He told me dentists have been doing this forever. He believes most cavities are overly cut out, which causes teeth to lose integrity, ensuring more visits later in the person’s life.
He told me this over ten years ago.
This has definitely been happening forever. Unnecessary fillings are par for the course. I went to a new dentist once and on the first visit he told me I needed 3 fillings. I declined and a high pressure sales pitch followed. I went to someone else the next time who said there was nothing that required immediate attention. I’ve been going there for years and just now needed one filling from her.
Lots of other people would just trust the first sleazebag dentist, or lack the confidence to say no, making this a serious problem. Licensing boards need to hold their licenses accountable for performing ethical work
I felt like I was let in on a dirty little secret that nobody else knew about. It’s almost stunning to see someone else who’s aware of what he told me. I texted my friend with this article right after I made my comment and he sent back this to me:
Yup private equity doesn’t care about your teeth.
The dude’s one in a million.
Seems like the way to deal with this would be for dentist #2 to report the issue to a licensing agency of some sort and they evaluate the records from both to determine the correct recommendations and if #1 is found to be recommending unnecessary work they get the shit fined out of them and have their license revoked if it’s repeated or particularly egregious.
Happened to me nearly 40 years ago on my baby teeth. My mother finally had enough and took me for a second opinion and the next dentist found no problems. It’s given me 40 years of dental anxiety so bad that I have to go to a specialist that deals with it. The only time I had to have work done there, they drugged me to the gills.
This was especially true with the old metal based fillings (gold, silver, etc). The metal contracts and expands a miniscule amount with heat and cold. Eventually they end up cracking the tooth. The larger the filling, the worse it is.
I am on crown #5 because of that asshole dentist when I was 23. Oh and a nice plus is they were extremely sensitive to temperature and randomly hurt like hell. At $1000 per crown it’s not fun on the pocket book.
We built an entire system based on perverse incentives and then act surprised at the outcomes.
Capitalism, what could go wrong?
We should have the insurance companies decide if you need it, that’ll help!
/s
could it be that this is more like an American problem. I don’t see it happening in great degree in countries that implement government-backed health/+insurance system.
I had many teeth ruined by a crooked dentist. I didn’t need any dental work for fifteen years after I changed dentists.
I don’t know why there aren’t government stings for dentists and mechanics. We have them against restaurants and bars all the time.
Completely ridiculous that it isn’t part of regular public healthcare over here
The amount of unnecessary surgeries has been a known issue since the 1950s. During the first year of the pandemic, when the amount of non-critical surgeries would have been at a local minima, there were about 100,000 unnecessary surgeries. Spine surgeries came in at about 30,000.
In this article they reference a survey of why surgeons were doing unnecessary spine surgeries:
The two common answers were: USS were done because “we always have done this way” and for “financial gain, renown, or both”.
The article goes on and makes some recommendations. The first of which is:
1.Setting up musculoskeletal clinics in primary healthcare centers to filter spine cases and prevent direct access to spine surgeons.
We continue to undertrain physicians for the US population and many are incentives to go into lucrative specialties leaving primary care physicians to be over booked, and buried in paper work.
This is not tbe first time i’ve heard of dental offices unnecessarily removing teeth in pursuit of profits.
My friend’s wife owns her own dental practice and straight up says that numerous offices do this. It’s hardly a secret, apparently, among them.
Oh, you mean when you involve a profit motive in health care, providers will act accordingly at the expense of the patient? Get the fuck out of here! No way! Next you’ll tell me when you introduce middlemen into the system they will also abuse their customers to benefit themselves!
I’m so fortunate I had a dentist that isn’t a piece of shit. Nothing she ever said sounded far fetched or like she was trying to get some cash. She unfortunately retired last year, but the other dentists at the practice seem good so far.
Long story short, I had an endodontist say I needed to pull a tooth because there was an infection, and my new dentist could do that. But he said he didn’t think it needed to be done and to go to another endodontist. Turns out the second opinion was to just get a root canal. In and out in fifteen minutes, and I still have my tooth.
So not all dentists are bad!
Aspen Dental. Never, ever sit in one of their chairs. If they don’t try to take your teeth, they will fleece you in other ways.
My guy suggested that i replace a tooth repair made 20+ years ago, maybe get some whitening. I asked if anything was functionally wrong with it, he said no. Not so sure he should be in medicine.
They’re trying to monetize their patient’s suffering before the tooth growing drug gets popular. I can almost guarantee it.
I wonder if the side effects will include “teeth growing in unusual locations…” beyond the usual nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea of course.
It’s going to be in the brain, isn’t it.
Other end, they’ll be in your butt.
On the upside your poops will look like this:
Thanks for ruining play doh! I can never play again!
Privates
Sir, yes, sir!
Get in the front leaning rest and give me 50, private!
drops and grows 50 teeth
I got prescribed fillings for all four quarters once, but the dentist suddenly died and it took me a while to find a new one. The new one didn’t comment at all about needing any work and seemed satisfied with how I was taking care of my teeth. So, there’s that. If you’re prescribed expensive work, it might pay to get a second option.
I’ve heard similar things about C-sections.
Stubb’s in Utah is horrible about this. I was shocked at how often this happens
Stubb’s? Like my teeth are just Stubbs now?
So poetic, how did I not see it
