Pearly Whites, Meet South of the Border
Just yesterday, I saw the dentist here in the snowglobe. As a freelancer, I don’t carry dental insurance - it’s just not worth the expense. Your standard x-rays, exam, and cleaning is 60 dollars here, not super cheap, but cheaper than the 90 dollars, cleaning only, no exam, I’d be getting from my US dentist. Our Austrian dentist is a nice guy, runs a modern small local practice; his wife is the hygenist. They have to go for training every year in updated technologies and treatments. The clinic here is easily equal in quality to the one I went to in the US - and, unlike my US clinic, never tries to sell me services of any kind. (I can go on and on about how many times I’ve asked “Is that neccessary” and recieved “No” as a response. What if I had just believed the dentist? Sheesh.)
On the heels of my visit to a dentist in a far away land, I found Dentimundo this morning, a site documenting the link between American patients and dentists south of the border.
Dentist clinics are as prominent as three for a dollar tacos, margarita specials and Mexican panchos.
There’s quite a bit of interesting stuff up there including a snappy little “corrida” song about the whole south of the border dental business. Check out the interviews with the dentists, too.
When we landed in the San Jose, Costa Rica, airport two years back, we were amazed at the number of billboards for dentistry services. And a few nights ago on the news I saw an interesting little blurb about how Swedish clinics were importing dentists for short term contracts - under six months - to circumnavigate the cost full time employees and save their patients money. (No dental benefits for the dentists, eh?) Even here in Austria, folks are taking junkets across the border to Hungary to get care for their choppers.
I take advantage of the lower cost care in far away places, but there’s no denying that I’m the economic elite with access and opportunity. That said, I would rather get my services locally. I would rather establish a long term relationship with a health care provider that I can communicate with in an effective way. This discredits my Austrian dentist, who does speak good English, but I think you get my point.
I have an axe to grind with the insurance companies who don’t seem to think that teeth and eyes are something standard on humans and require that they have supplemental coverage. But maybe that’s another post entirely.
