dentist Archives - The Wealthy Dentist

Dentist Nanosilver Recommendations Are Hard To Come By

November 27, 2020 By Jim Du Molin Leave a Comment

Only 6% of dentists said they would recommend nanosilver toothpaste to a patient, this survey found. On the other hand, 26% would recommend against it, and fully two out of three (69%) said they don’t know enough about it to make a recommendation.

“There is not enough scientific evidence that it is more efficacious than other more proven products,” said one dentist, “and there’s some disturbing evidence that it might do harm.”

“As my professional duty to every individual I serve, I could not recommend nanoproducts without evidence-based guidelines for them,” said another. “My first duty to the person who is my patient is to do no harm.”

Read the full results from this survey: Dentists Reluctant To Recommend Nanosilver Toothpaste

In addition, you may be interested in additional articles from The Wealthy Dentist on silver nanotechnology:

Filed Under: Dental Surveys Tagged With: dentist, nano silver, nanomaterials, nanotech, nanotechnology, toothpaste

California To Cut Back on Prison Dentists

November 27, 2020 By Jim Du Molin Leave a Comment

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation currently employs 294 prison dentists and 2 dental hygienists. The department plans to lay off at least 31 dentists.

The prison system plans to let some dentists go and replace them with a larger number of dental hygienists. California prison dentists are paid just over $15,000 per month, while hygienists receive less than $5,000.

The two most highly-paid employees in the California Corrections system are both dentists; one made $621,000 in 2009, and the other $500,000. Chief Dentists at California correctional facilities receive a base pay of between $300,000 and $330,000. (Read about the $621,000 prison dentist and other compensation information at the Sacramento Bee’s database of California state worker salaries)

The story gathered lots of comments. Here are a few highlights:

Some people don’t understand why the state should spend its money providing dental treatment to prisoners.

“Prisoners? Taxpayer-paid dental care? Time to end that!”
“This should have never been a problem needing to be corrected. There is no need for nearly 10 dentists per prison in California. That is about $2,000,000 per year per prison, not including benefits. Put another way, it is well over $50,000,000 (fifty million dollars) per year system-wide.”
“Better yet, we have inmates that were doctors on the streets. All we have to do is re-certify them, with the inmate getting twenty cents an hour. We would be saving big money and putting lazy people (inmates) back to work.”
“They need to lay them all off. The state can use students and interns to do this work. Call it on the job training and save the state MILLIONS of dollars.”

Some are hostile to the idea of prisoners getting better dental care than average citizens.

“A lot of working people can’t afford dental care. Even if you have dental insurance, at most dental offices, dental hygienists are doing all the routine cleaning. Dentist time is too valuable for the common person. However, when you are a felon, you must have the best of care, and of course it’s free. Does anyone else have a problem with that or is it just me?”
“Who gives a flying crap if an inmate has dental care!?! There are decent law-abiding citizens who work and don’t even have dental insurance for the BASIC dental needs. The inmates are given toothbrushes and toothpaste that’s enough!!! Oh, by the way, for those of you who are so sympathetic to the needs of criminals who are incarcerated they can also have any of their self-confused IDENTITY issues taken care of also. ON YOUR DOLLARS!”

There is disagreement over whether that compensation is generous or not.

“Ahhh, but see, look at the benefits that a State dental hygienist will receive versus those who work in the private sector. The same holds true for Dentists and Doctors. No staff overhead, no office rental or lease, equipment furnished for free, excellent retirement and health benefits and top doctor wages on top of it. So I am thinking that a lot of hygienists will be applying.“
“The problem with this is the fact that no self-respecting dental hygienist will work for these low wages. The state does not think things through. They believe their own hype that state workers are overpaid. They are underpaid. The dental hygienist slots will be hard to fill for $4,783 – 10% = $4,305. If this is the top step, they will probably start even lower than this. This is advanced dental assistant pay, not hygienist pay, you fools.”

And of course, there is no shortage of opinions on how the state can save money.

“Next on the list is the [prison] psychiatrists. There is no need for so many!”
“UAPD is one of six unions that reached new labor agreements with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last summer. The deal, which shields members from furloughs and minimum wage in exchange for pay and benefits concessions, doesn’t include layoff protections.”
“Just one of what must be thousands of brilliant cost-saving ideas that the State should have come up with, say… three years ago when the sh** hit the fan. Wait, then everybody wouldn’t have shared the pain like GAS [Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger] wanted. You’ve got to be kidding me. Nobody thought that this was an extravagant cost prior to this week.“
“Finally people are opening their eyes to where the money is being wasted… We have hired so many medical staff at such high salaries, all just to give inmates better care than working class Californians, and more and more excuses for their misbehavior. Get rid of all the medical staff, keep the MTAs and send the inmates out for their medical care. It’s what is happening anyways, because the Doctors we have and pay huge money to don’t want to be the one to misdiagnose an inmate, so they just refer the inmate to the outside hospital for treatment. You don’t have to pay somebody 20 grand a month to, say, send an inmate to UCD or UCSF.”

It seems to me that this is a big story. We’re talking about nothing more and nothing less than government involvement in health care.

So what do you think? Is this a harbinger of what’s to come?

Filed Under: Dental Editorials Tagged With: dentist, jail, prison, prison dentist, prison dentistry

Root Canal Fees: General Dentist Vs Endodontist

November 27, 2020 By Jim Du Molin Leave a Comment

This survey found the average root canal fee is $887 if treatment is performed by a general dentist and $1,500 if done by a specialist, with the majority of dentists surveyed saying they perform root canals.

Fees for different teeth vary only slightly regardless of whether performed by a generalist or a specialist.

At a general practice –

D3310 – anterior tooth: $745.00
D3320 – bicuspid tooth: $850.00
D3330 – molar: $1,013.00

At a specialist practice –

D3310 – anterior tooth: $1,300.00
D3320 – bicuspid tooth: $1,195.00
D3330 – molar: $1,268.00

Root canal therapy costs somewhat more from endodontists than from general dentists, especially on posterior teeth. Of course, an endodontist will perform a difficult root canal, while a general dentist might refer out that endodontic procedure.

Here are some dentist comments about root canals:

“I don’t do endo in my office any more. With microscopes and all the other technology available in endo offices, I feel my patients are getting a better quality service with the specialist than I can provide.” (General dentist)
“How about when the root canal needs to be extracted 4 months later and the patient demands a refund and/or free extraction?” (General dentist)
“Root canals performed by endodontists are a better alternative to tooth extraction.” (Tenessee endodontist)
“What used to take several long appointments can now be performed in one appointment, but some require more, so it’s better to refer to an endo.” (General dentist)
“I need to raise my fees.” (Texas dentist)
“About twenty years ago, the Federal Government prosecuted a small group of dentists who discussed their fees over coffee. The government considered this to be “price fixing” which is against the law. Since then, dentists have been publicly warned not to discuss their fees among themselves or face prosecution.” (California dentist)

Filed Under: Dental Surveys, The Wealthy Dentist Tagged With: Dental Costs, dental surveys, dentist, endodontic, endodontics, endodontist, general dentist, root canal, root canal fees, root canal therapy, root canal treatment

Dentist Boasts Patients Travel 4 Hours for His Dental Treatments (video)

November 27, 2020 By Jim Du Molin Leave a Comment

An implantologist boasts that many of his dental patients travel up to four hours by car for their dental treatments at his practice. However, as surprising as it might seem, it is not unusual for dental patients to travel hundreds of miles to see their favorite dentist.

The Wealthy Dentist conducted a survey that asked dentists how far some of their dental patients travel for an appointment at their practice.

Dentists responded that many of their patients travel five to ten miles, but others continue to see them after moving hundreds, or even thousands of miles away.

Click on Play to hear what dentists had to say about patients who travel for their dental appointments –

Not surprisingly, rural patients travel farther to see a dentist than do urban residents.

“Some patients will travel 30+ miles,” wrote a rural dentist, “and then there is the fellow who comes twice a year from the Netherlands…”

Filed Under: Dental Videos, The Wealthy Dentist Tagged With: Dental Care, dental practice, Dental Practices, dental survey, dental survey videos, dentist, dentistry, dentists, video marketing

Could You Run Your Family or Dental Practice This Way?

November 27, 2020 By Jim Du Molin Leave a Comment

The following was passed on to me by one of our readers . . .

Interesting Perspective on the American Debt –

If you’ve been watching the world news lately, here’s some math to consider…

U.S. income: $2,170,000,000,000

New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000

Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000

National debt: $14,271,000,000,000

Budget cut: $ 2, 100,000,000,000 ( CBO estimated )/ Annualized over 10 years (210,000,000,000)

It helps to think about these numbers in terms that we can relate to. Let’s remove eight zeros from these numbers and pretend this is the family budget for the fictitious Smith family.

Total annual income for the Smith family: $21,700

Amount of money the Smith family spent: $38,200

Amount of new debt added to the credit card: $16,500

Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710

Amount cut from the budget: $210

So in effect last month Congress, or in this example the SMITH family, sat down at the kitchen table and agreed to cut $210 from its annual budget.

What family would cut $210 of spending in order to solve $16,500 in deficit spending?

Now I believe that this does not take into consideration the interest on that credit card!

It is an obvious expression of the frustration almost all of us have with the current political process and the resulting economic mayhem that we are being forced to endure.

At this point the market collapse has seen over one trillion dollars of American investors’ capital investment and dentists’ retirement funding vanish in the last two weeks.