dental economics

DENTAL ECONOMICS
Very often dental treatment is associated with heavy expenses. It is true that dental treatment is expensive, but it is surprising to know that it is much less expensive than most other general body treatments. For instance , a cardiac surgery costs in lakhs (varying at various centres) but in contrast ninety five percent of dental treatments are much cheaper. This is a very sensitive and touchy topic to talk about but a very important one. Today i will be discussing the economics of dentistry and its implications towards your benefit.
Can you avoid dental treatment? Well, the answer is no. It can not be avoided if you don’t visit a dentist’s office for routine check ups. Only routine check ups can prevent complicated dental treatments.in fact if we are little vigilant and informed then we can save a lot of money on dental treatment.
Let me start with periodontitis or pyorrhoea. This is a most common disease which affects many of us. The actual treatment is gum surgery which may cost anywhere from twenty to forty thousand. If we visit a dentist regularly and get our annual check ups and scaling done then we will never get the disease and we have to spend much less money in our whole life time. Thus your teeth are saved as well as your money.
There is tooth decay in most of our oral cavities. It hardly takes 500 to 1000 rs(rough estimate) to fill a tooth. But imagine if you don’t go to a dentist in time and the cavity increases and infects the tooth then u will have severe pain . the treatment will be root canal treatment (RCT) plus capping. This will cost much more than just one filling.
In a life time of modern urban citizen he/she can save more than fifty thousand rs just by regular visits to dentist. The reason being is that modern food habits and life style leads to gum diseases and caries and ultimately tooth loss. So you will be taking treatment for gums, many RCTs , cappings and the end result being DENTURES. If you add up the costs for all treatments and the mental agony it comes to much more than any amount of money spent. That too when you know that all this could be stopped and avoided.
Thus the best way is to avail of preventive treatments and visit the dentist every 6 months. Some of the preventive treatments available are :Scaling,Fluoride varnishes, Dental sealants , space maintainers, habit breaking appliances , preventive tooth creams etc.
The good news is that for the first time in india , dental insurance is being launched. Its being launched on 16th September. This is for sure going to change the face of dentistry in india and the attitude and aptitude of patients towards dentistry.