Good evening to you /frugal/,
My father and I have both been graced with some dental issues in early 2017. In the past few months I have seen him go through cleanings, root canals, crowns, a plethora of the usual deferred maintenance issues. He was in severe pain today and had to go through an emergency root canal. Fortunately he and my mother have insurance and it's making those bills much less expensive. As for me, I do not have dental insurance since I am a working-poor late-twenties millennial with a job that has questionable stability. I realized I needed to take these potential risks out of my future.
Today I went to the University of Maryland School of Dentistry in Baltimore City and it was one of the best experiences I have ever had with dentistry. Last week I looked up the number and called, I was lucky enough that they had one last appointment available Monday at 8am and I obliged. The general screening was supervised by three dentists. Yes, I had three different astute, ready-to-teach, dentists check over the students' work in front of me. You never get to see the dentist analyze you and explain what's wrong with you at the regular office, but here I was able to see everything. Even though it took longer than a normal dentist appointment, the several hours was very thorough. I understand I wasn't a tough case. Background: I brush and floss daily, so should you. Overall my appointment was great, one of the faculty dentists said to the student at one point, "This is a boring case, you're not going to graduate off this guy." That might have just been to ease my worries. Unfortunately the diagnosis from those two wasn't all so great in my opinion, although I'm sure they see much worse. Several fillings that I had in the past are deteriorating, but not quite weathered enough to cause problems. The dentist-in-training, dentist, and I had an agreement; either I could get these problems fixed within the next few weeks at a flat rate of ~$650 ($200 for x-rays & preliminary evaluation, $50 for a general-cleaning, and $400 for FOUR replaced fillings) or I could wait until I need a root canal. For someone with a moderate amount of savings , I pulled the trigger and said I had to get these done right now or face the consequences.
Lo and behold, I discovered my father's bill today was $1,350 for one emergency root canal, no crown included (another +~$1,400). This statement proves true most of the time; Preventative medicine is the best medicine!
March 06, 2017 at 08:02PM
