 |
THE DRILL ON DENTAL TOURISM - Posted 27.06.08 |
 |
THE DRILL ON DENTAL TOURISM
Work on your teeth costing as much as a home deposit in Australia can be done for a third of the price overseas. But your health fund may not cover it!!
“Dental Tourism” is the catchy name for a growing industry attracting Australians to countries such as the Philippines, Thailand, India, Hungary or Poland for major dental work. It has followed the boom in “medical tourism”, where people travel overseas for cheaper cosmetic and other surgery.
The trips often combine daily appointments in the dentists chair with sightseeing, shopping, massages or day spa treatments, and result in a new set of choppers at a significantly reduced cost.
Advocates say the quality of the dental work is comparable with that received in Australia; detractors say that if it sounds too good to be true, it is. But with dental bills causing as much pain as the dental drill, many are prepared to take the chance.
There is no record of exactly how many Australians go overseas for dental work, but the best estimate is several hundred each year, and rising steadily. In the United States, it is estimated that about 200,000 people sought dental treatment overseas in 2006- a figure that had grown at least three-fold in only two years.
They are usually the worst cases: people requiring complete restoration of teeth, gums and even the jawbone, who have been quoted the value of a luxury car to have the work done at home.
But that’s were the danger comes in, warns the President of the Australian Dental Association, John Matthews. The most difficult cases need the most complex treatment, often including considerable ‘work-up’- treatment to improve the condition of gums and bones, or the taking of dental impressions, in the lead-up to surgery- as well as continuing maintenance afterwards. Such cases would take months to treat in Australia, but the overseas surgery is often completed in just two or three weeks.
“Most people who do these trips do it for fairly complicated dentistry. The more complex it is, the more likely it is to fail,” Mr. Matthews says. “This is all no-brainer stuff. What happens if it does go wrong? Maintenance is quite a problem. It’s mostly our specialists who get these people when they have failed. Its mostly rushed work, and the complications of rushed worked, that we see.”
Matthews warns that the quality of materials used in some foreign clinics can be inferior to those used in Australia. He recalls seeing one patient who had received poor quality gold fillings that contained a high level of copper, and there has been a recent scare in the US over dodgy dentures, veneers, bridges and crowns manufactured overseas.
Patients also put themselves at risk because foreign clinics do not have to abide by the regulations that apply to dental qualifications, infection control and blood control in Australia. “Can you, as a layperson, assess whether the person is competent? You have got the regulatory protection here that you don’t necessarily have overseas,” Matthews says.
Melbourne dentist Richard Skinner says it’s difficult to compare dental work done in Australia with cheaper foreign work because the general standard of living in countries such as Thailand and The Philippines is lower. Dentists trained in those countries often do not abide by the same standards of care expected in Australia.
“It’s hard to compare apples with pears. If you were going to buy yourself a Rolex watch, it’s basically going to cost the same all over the world,” Skinner says. “If you want to get a copy of a Rolex watch, you can get one in Thailand or The Philippines for $12 or $15.”
|
|
|
 |
Back to News |
