# Dentist lied about Medicare paying for Dentist work.



## Robert59 (Feb 8, 2021)

My girlfriend was going to kill her dentist because he told her Medicare paid for it 100%. She just told them she wasn't going to pay them anything. She had two teeth done and it came to 2900.00 dollars.


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## hollydolly (Feb 8, 2021)

Oh Dear God...the price !!!! she could have got a return flight to the uk and had the work done for less ....


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## Devi (Feb 8, 2021)

I wonder what "done" means. That no doubt would affect the price.


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## tbeltrans (Feb 8, 2021)

Devi said:


> I wonder what "done" means. That no doubt would affect the price.


Well, the Australians I have worked with, had a saying for when somebody got ripped off like the OP's girlfriend.  They would say "You've been done".   

I have never heard of Medicare paying for dentistry.  I just had a tooth pulled today and I have separate dental insurance for that kind of thing.  I go to the VA for all my medical care except dental care, though I also have to have Medicare because it is the law.

Tony


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## hollydolly (Feb 8, 2021)

Devi said:


> I wonder what "done" means. That no doubt would affect the price.


good point...what exactly did she have done ?


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## Keesha (Feb 8, 2021)

Holy smokes! That’s outrageous. I’d be calling up Medicare and calling up the dental board.
That’s taking advantage of his patients. Very bad business practice.


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## Gaer (Feb 8, 2021)

Oh!  That's HORRIBLE!  I hope she will fight it!


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## Robert59 (Feb 8, 2021)

She had a core buildup including pins on tooth 9 and 10. And two crown porcelain/ceramic Zirc  
She has another dental insurance on top of medicare which she pays more every month. She pays to AARP something extra.


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## tbeltrans (Feb 8, 2021)

The only dental insurance I have (my wife also has a policy) is through Delta Dental.  Mine is through the veteran's part of Delta Dental and my wife's is the usual coverage most non-veterans get.  There is little difference except that my insurance costs a bit less than my wife's for the same coverage.  In terms of how well the insurance works (within the limitations of typical coverage) seems to be determined by the quality and knowledge of the people at the dentist office who handle the insurance.  It took three tries to find a good dentist who also had good people working for her to handle insurance.  Fortunately, she is walking distance from our condo.

Tony


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## win231 (Feb 8, 2021)

I wish I could get away that cheap.


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## Don M. (Feb 8, 2021)

Robert59 said:


> My girlfriend was going to kill her dentist because he told her Medicare paid for it 100%. She just told them she wasn't going to pay them anything. She had two teeth done and it came to 2900.00 dollars.



Dental Insurance, in the US, is a joke.  Medicare covers little or nothing, and even if a person has 3rd party dental insurance, the benefits cover little more than the cost of the premiums.   We have one of the better dental plans....Renaissance...and outside of covering a couple of annual cleanings, and minor fillings, we're lucky if it covers half the cost of things like a root canal.  These ads on TV saying that there are Medicare plans that cover vision and dental are a total lie.  

If there is One thing I could change in this nation, it would be to implement a Universal Health Care system, much like the rest of the civilized world uses.  Sure, it would raise our taxes, but that would be more than offset by not having to spend trillions per year to support our "For Profit" health care and insurance systems.   Every study done in recent years clearly shows that we pay twice as much for health care as most other nations.....and rank Way Down the list in terms of Value for those dollars.


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## jerry old (Feb 8, 2021)

There is no acceptable reason for the deplorable status of America's Health Coverage.  
It is not the AMA, it is your friendly medical coverage insurance.
You will pay, pay, and pay, the lobbyists party, party, party: the insurance companies are too busy counting your premiums to party


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## terry123 (Feb 8, 2021)

I have a Medicare advantage plan and they pay very little for going to the dentist.  Before I go to any doctor, dentist or hospital, I make calls so I know what I am responsible for. The dentist knows nothing about what insurance will pay.  You need to speak to their billing department and your insurance company before you go.


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## win231 (Feb 8, 2021)

I posted previously about my dental experiences.  Dentists are like auto mechanics - honest ones are few.  And some that were honest have become corrupt because of the economy in the past few years.  Greed has taken over.  Example:
I found an honest dentist in 2000.  He replaced several crowns & did 7 of my root canals & replaced a bridge that another dentist did incompetently & caused an infection that could have killed me (Sepsis).  In those few years, I paid him over $16,000.00 & brought my whole family to him.
Then, I chipped a front crown when I bit into a peach, so, of course I went to him, since I trusted him for years.  He tried to convince me to replace ALL 8 front crowns--upper & lower.  Since that involved a lot of trauma to the teeth & gums (and, of course the cost), I asked him why. He said, "So the color will match."  He should have known that since I had 30 crowns, I know that the dentist sends a digital photo of the other crowns to the lab to match the color.  When I refused all that unnecessary trauma, he said, "Well, we can just replace the chipped one, if you want."
I let him replace it, but I never saw him again.  I'd be a fool to trust a dentist who was willing to put me through hours of unnecessary trauma to make a few thousand dollars.


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## OneEyedDiva (Feb 9, 2021)

About 3 or 4 years ago I went in for a cleaning and found out I had a cavity below the gum line next to a nerve. I seriously thought I was through with cavities! I'm glad I had a dental plan because it saved me $1,500 on the cleaning, root canal and cap for one tooth. The plan is $130 a year and I had started to cancel it because it's about the same price as a cleaning which I thought was all I'd need. So glad I decided to keep it.


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## Butterfly (Feb 10, 2021)

Robert59 said:


> My girlfriend was going to kill her dentist because he told her Medicare paid for it 100%. She just told them she wasn't going to pay them anything. She had two teeth done and it came to 2900.00 dollars.



Medicare won't pay the bill for dentistry except in very particular circumstances, like reconstruction of the jaw after an injury.

But, she might have other coverage, as you suggested in a later post.

She shouldn't have taken the dentist's word about coverage; she should have checked with her other coverage before undertaking to have it done, and to make sure the dentist was under their plan, if that is required.  Most dental coverage isn't worth much of anything, anyway.   If the other insurance won't cover it, she is stuck with the bill.


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## funsearcher! (Feb 10, 2021)

I am looking into dental discount plans instead of dental insurance. Someone in another thread mentioned that discount plans are better.
Can anyone comment on their experience?


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## Liberty (Feb 11, 2021)

funsearcher! said:


> I am looking into dental discount plans instead of dental insurance. Someone in another thread mentioned that discount plans are better.
> Can anyone comment on their experience?


I have a dental discount plan.  They usually don't pay for root canals, but will help with crowns and other normal dental work.  For what you pay, if you get the discount on 2 cleanings and a set of x-rays per year, you break even.

No more root canals or implants for me.  I had one down 3 years ago that just lasted 2 years - cost - $1300 for the root canal and another $800 for the crown.  

There comes a time in your life when you embrace partials if you need to. The only money ever lost was from failed implant/root canal. Root canals weaken teeth.  Have some in my mouth, but think as you age its like throwing money down a drain to get new ones.


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## StarSong (Feb 11, 2021)

tbeltrans said:


> I have never heard of Medicare paying for dentistry.


Ditto


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## win231 (Feb 11, 2021)

Liberty said:


> I have a dental discount plan.  They usually don't pay for root canals, but will help with crowns and other normal dental work.  For what you pay, if you get the discount on 2 cleanings and a set of x-rays per year, you break even.
> 
> No more root canals or implants for me.  I had one down 3 years ago that just lasted 2 years - cost - $1300 for the root canal and another $800 for the crown.
> 
> There comes a time in your life when you embrace partials if you need to. The only money ever lost was from failed implant/root canal. Root canals weaken teeth.  Have some in my mouth, but think as you age its like throwing money down a drain to get new ones.


There is a reason some crowns fail after a few years & others seem to last forever.  After a full dental reconstruction - 30 crowns, I've learned a bit.
I had 8 crowns replaced after 5 years & I have 22 that are over 25 years old & are still good.  While my new dentist was replacing the crowns, I asked him why some last forever & some come off after a few years.  He showed me 3 of the failed crowns.  They had very little cement on them - just a tiny dab.  Why would a dentist do that?  In dental practice, a crown is guaranteed to last 5 years.  If a dentist wants to make extra money, all he has to do is deliberately not use enough cement & hopefully, the crown will last no more than 5 years.  Of course, he then gets to replace it - for another $1,350.00 (or whatever he charges you or bills your insurance).

A crown's fit is critical.  If the dentist's lab doesn't get it right, bacteria & food will accumulate between the crown & the post.  The dentist has to pay the lab - that's part of the total cost.  Sometimes, the lab won't get the fit right & the dentist doesn't want to pay the lab's fee again because it cuts into his profit, so he will install the poorly-fitted crown & use extra cement to fill in the gaps.  The cement wears away over time & the crown won't last as long as it should.  That's what one dentist did to me & I had to have a bridge re-done after waiting 1 year for the area to heal completely.  After several complaints to the Dental Board, and a year of arguing, the dentist refunded me the $3,000.00 to have the bridge done again by another dentist.   The incompetent dentist did not refund my money because he knew he did something wrong.  He refunded my money ONLY AFTER other dentists I was consulting to redo the bridge asked me who did the incompetent bridge & his reputation was being hurt when I gave the other dentists his name.

Re:  Root Canals.  If a dentist is in a hurry to get you out of the chair so he can get another paying patient in the chair, he may not get all the infection out of the tooth canal before sealing everything up (like one dentist did to me).  Then the infection has nowhere to go & spreads & it can become life threatening.  Once that happens you should never return to that dentist.


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## funsearcher! (Feb 11, 2021)

HOW DO YOU KNOW whether to repair a 38 year old bridge or go ahead and do an upper plate? I have been quoted $6800 to remove a tooth, do an implant and crown and revise the existing bridge. No idea of cost to remove everything and do an upper plate.


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## Dudewho (Feb 11, 2021)

Robert59 said:


> My girlfriend was going to kill her dentist because he told her Medicare paid for it 100%. She just told them she wasn't going to pay them anything. She had two teeth done and it came to 2900.00 dollars.


Medicare will not pay for routine Dental. Some Medicare Advantage plans pay for dental.


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## win231 (Feb 11, 2021)

funsearcher! said:


> HOW DO YOU KNOW whether to repair a 38 year old bridge or go ahead and do an upper plate? I have been quoted $6800 to remove a tooth, do an implant and crown and revise the existing bridge. No idea of cost to remove everything and do an upper plate.


Re:  Implants.  These days, dentists will push implants over bridges or plates.  I'm not saying dental implants are always a bad idea; but keep in mind that it's an invasive procedure with the risk of infection; the gum has to be cut open twice & bone has to be drilled into.  And if it causes problems & has to be removed, that means more surgery & more risk.  And you don't get your money back.
I've had a dentist try to sell me on an implant instead of a bridge.  The reason?  A bridge is around $3,000.00.  An implant is more than double the cost & double the profit for the dentist.  The dentist got very upset with me when I told him I did my research & found out diabetics shouldn't get implants because of the higher risk of failure.  He went on & on about how "Rare" problems are with implants.  I know 3 people who had to have several implants removed; over $25,000.00 wasted.


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## StarSong (Feb 11, 2021)

win231 said:


> Re:  Implants.  These days, dentists will push implants over bridges or plates.  I'm not saying dental implants are always a bad idea; but keep in mind that it's an invasive procedure with the risk of infection; the gum has to be cut open & bone has to be drilled into.  And if it causes problems & has to be removed, that means more surgery & more risk.  And you don't get your money back.
> I've had a dentist try to sell me on an implant instead of a bridge.  The reason?  A bridge is around $3,000.00.  An implant is more than double the cost & double the profit for the dentist.  The dentist got very upset with me when I told him I did my research & found out diabetics shouldn't get implants because of the higher risk of failure.


There's a high risk of failure in general with implants which isn't something they publicize.


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## win231 (Feb 11, 2021)

StarSong said:


> There's a high risk of failure in general with implants which isn't something they publicize.


It's interesting that when they show drug ads, they're required to mention negative side effects, but when they show ads for dental implants, they're not required to mention anything about failure rates or risks.  All they show is that guy biting into an apple with that loud crunch.


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## win231 (Feb 11, 2021)

Dudewho said:


> Medicare will not pay for routine Dental. Some Medicare Advantage plans pay for dental.


You need to read all the find print before enrolling in a dental plan.  When I was employed, a dental insurance salesperson came to our office to sell dental insurance.  Along with her sales pitch, she brought a thick handbook that outlined their plan.  It would take a long time to read it, but I noted some key points & she got very irritated with me when I asked her about them; obviously it made the other employees think twice.
Among those points:
_"Coverage doesn't start until 12 months of paying premiums."_  (Obviously, they want to make money before paying anything out)

_"Dental treatment can involve several options & the insurance provider will choose the least expensive treatment  option."_  (I experienced that while I was previously employed with a company that provided dental coverage through "Cigna Healthplan."  Instead of a crown, the dentist kept filling teeth that needed crowns because a filling is cheaper than a crown.  Every few months, the fillings would break apart because the decay was too large, & the dentist would have to drill away more of the tooth & fill it again - as he was ordered to do by the people in charge.)  When I would ask the dentist if a crown would be a better than constant decay, constant filling & constant exposure to Mercury, he's say, "Oh, no. Fillings are better than crowns."
And, there are several types of crowns - Porcelain & Metal, & Plastic.  Of course the provider will choose the cheapest ones - which won't last very long.
If you have dental coverage, your treatment will depend on what is cheapest for the insurer; not your health.


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## Dudewho (Feb 11, 2021)

win231 said:


> Among those points:
> _"Coverage doesn't start until 12 months of paying premiums."_ (Obviously, they want to make money before paying anything out)


The good news is that Medicare Advantage dental will not have a waiting period and if it is an option on your plan, you can add it anytime you want.


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## Keesha (Feb 11, 2021)

I’m so grateful for the great dental service I receive. We have coverage and our dentist always checks what’s covered and discusses it with me before she proceeds on doing anything.


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