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What do I, as informed patient, have to look out for in terms of dental prostheses?
Dental prostheses are extremely important for appearance, charisma, health and well-being. Beautiful teeth play an important part in our modern perception of beauty.
Perfect teeth underline personality and social standing and they can improve our self-confidence considerably. Consequently, partial or total loss of teeth has a huge influence on our self-confidence and thus on our well-being.
Every fourth person over 24 has a dental prosthesis! Every third person over 33. Almost everybody over 50.
This is why naturally-looking, perfect and physically harmless materials for dental prostheses should go without saying and should be inexpensive.
For the front teeth it is possible to design the shape, colour and position
of the teeth in such a way as to fit the sex, age and personality of the patients. Through the high quality of many dentists' and dental technicians' work, prostheses can be made almost invisible to third persons.
But by no means all and in all cases.
Additionally, the price plays an ever more important part. Particularly at such a time of diminishing health benefits and increasing own-contribution costs, you should not shy away from an
extensive price comparison. Have several dentists in Germany and abroad quote you detailed prices for dental prostheses.
Note: Compulsory health insurance dentists in Germany must provide a treatment plan and a cost projection free of charge when insurance company benefits are included therein. Attaching a pretreatment or any other "strings" to this is against the law!
The cost projection is generally free in other countries as well.
In order to make your personal price comparison as easy as possible, we are actively supporting you.
And this is how it goes: All you need is an up-to-date cost projection and treatment plan from your previous dentist. On the basis of this information you will receive from us a free counter-offer which is almost always less expensive.
My price comparison for prostheses
At first sight, care-free treatment packages abroad appear most seductive, promising discounts of 50, 60 or even 70 percent.
The vendors are almost always placement agencies. But beware! What does the 70% of what stand for? Request detailed information particularly here. For example, are also the surgeon's fee, anesthesia and X-rays included in the cost of an implant, or are these extra costs?
Is the physician doing the implant an oral surgeon or a certified implantologist at all? What materials and from which manufacturer are being used? Is post-treatment necessary? If yes, where does it take place? ... Before making a decision, you should always request
an exact breakdown of all the costs involved, and you should read carefully the so-called fine print, because no less than your health and finances are at stake.
Don't forget: your travel expenses. If you are really on vacation, you can ignore these expenses.
But if you are travelling only for dental treatment, you have to add the travel expenses. For an implant you have to book a hotel room two or three times. (preliminary medical investigation, bone setup, implantation, exposing the implant after healing, manufacturing the prosthesis,
introducing the prosthesis). All in all about 7 months!
Another example:
If you need a crown, your dentist - let's call him A - makes you an offer. For example, for a full-ceramic crown of zirconium oxide accurately computed, 600 Euros.
If you now get a counter-offer from dentist B and it says only "full-ceramic crown", this could also mean a full-ceramic crown of pressed ceramic. A crown made of pressed ceramic is considerably cheaper and your alleged cost saving of approx. 50% is anything but that.
You would simply have gotten worse quality for an absolutely normal price. A bargain - not at all. The same also goes for the pretreatment conducted by the dentist. Is (s)he doing all that is necessary to remove even the last source of caries in the snag before setting the crown?
Is a cofferdam being used in order to work completely saliva-proof and dry? ... Have the dentist list and explain with accuracy all the separate treatments. Ask the prices of each. You should insist on that especially when you are an almost private patient and have to pay yourself.
Only thus is a real price-quality comparison possible and useful. After all, you don't buy your car without comparing prices, do you? Why should an expensive prosthesis be any different?
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