What you don’t need to pay a dentist for reviews

It is difficult to imagine that even some 30 years ago, many dental procedures were performed without anesthesia, and patients with acute pain had to sit in front of the office for hours waiting for an appointment. Modern dentistry has become comfortable, almost painless and more humane, although it is sometimes very expensive.

Going to a private clinic, we are ready to part with a certain amount of money, but in return we expect to receive professional treatment and a solution to the problem. Unfortunately, sometimes the result is exactly the opposite: new, long and exhausting procedures are added to the existing troubles, at best they end in nothing, at worst they require additional treatment. And in addition, the account grows several times.

To avoid such situations, not to go broke and find a beautiful smile, you need to know your rights. We will tell you what conflict situations may lie in wait for you in private dentistry and in what cases you can not pay.

When you buy a new phone in a store, the seller will write you a warranty card for free repair of the product if a factory defect is found in it. By concluding a contract for the assembly of furniture or the installation of an air conditioner, you are also guaranteed a high-quality result – otherwise, you may demand to redo the work. All this is also true for the dental clinic.

The legislation of the Russian Federation obliges medical institutions to be responsible for improper treatment, but not all cases fall under the scope of regulatory documents. For example, the clinic undertakes the warranty obligations for implantation, veneer installation or occlusion correction on its own initiative.

Therefore, before starting treatment, carefully read the contract that you have to sign: it should describe in detail the specific conditions and terms of the warranty for services and products (different types of fillings, braces, etc.). If you plan to have an implantation, at least dentistry should give a guarantee for the implant (in most cases, this guarantee is given by the manufacturer, not the clinic). Ideal when warranty obligations are imposed on the installation procedure itself.

Alas, the average patient is not always able to objectively assess the quality of treatment. Even if the filling is firmly in place and you experience no discomfort, there is no guarantee that the procedure was performed properly. But let’s take a situation in which you can clearly answer the question of whether the treatment was of high quality or not.

Imagine that you decided to correct the bite, came to an appointment with an orthodontist, he installed braces for you, with which you had to walk for a year and a half. You bravely survived this period, endured inconvenience and discomfort. And when the course of correction came to an end, it turned out that the problem had not been solved or had not been solved completely – instead of gaining a beautiful smile, you wasted a significant amount of money and lost a year and a half.

If you have been provided with a poor-quality service, you have the right to demand compensation and free error correction. True, no one will return the time spent.

You have made the decision to whiten your teeth. This procedure, as you know, is not cheap, so you need to carefully choose where to carry the money. You called several suitable clinics, checked the prices on the websites and chose the one where they ask for less for the service. When it came time to pay, the final amount turned out to be twice as high as the declared one: it turns out that you were told the cost of whitening only, but did not consider the mandatory procedure for hygienic cleaning and possible other additional services and manipulations. The clinic misinformed you, but it’s almost impossible to prove it, you have to pay.

This practice is especially common when performing lengthy procedures, because it makes it easier to promote the client for additional expenses. If you put on braces, you will be prescribed a mandatory cleaning of the bracket system, and the price will be set above the market average. And so that you do not go to another clinic, they will threaten to void the guarantee.

There are a lot of scenarios in which you have to pay more than you expected. In order not to fall for this bait, it is worth choosing the clinic where long and expensive procedures are sold in packages. You will immediately know that bite correction will cost 150 thousand – even if this amount initially seems too large, but you will clearly understand how much the treatment will cost.

Paying for each manipulation separately, you can spend much more, go beyond the budget and, in addition, not get the full range of services. Just clarify right away what is included in the package and whether additional procedures may be needed – and if so, whether you have the right to apply for them to another clinic. As a rule, good dentists who value their reputation will not put the patient in a strict framework. Their prices are more transparent, the conditions for purchasing the package are described in detail and understandably.

It also happens that a patient, turning to a dentist for help, not only does not solve his problem, but also gets a new one. There can be a lot of reasons: insufficient qualification of doctors, non-compliance with technologies, banal negligence. There are often cases when, due to improper treatment, a patient loses a still completely healthy tooth or tries for a long time to correct the consequences of an incorrect implant installation.

But this is not the worst thing – it is worse if, during treatment, the patient receives an infectious infection. In this case, the consequences can be the most dire.

Remember that in the event of injury to your health, you have every right to claim compensation. If the error can be eliminated, the clinic is obliged to do so. If not, at least compensate for the damage. In the event of a conflict, one can and should go to court: patients often win such cases.

Of course, it is impossible to be 100% protected from poor-quality treatment. But you can at least partially protect yourself by choosing a reliable clinic. There are several criteria that are worth paying attention to, and first of all, this is the number of years on the market. Private dentistry is constantly opening and closing, and one-day can not guarantee you quality services. The longer the clinic has been operating, the more it values ​​its reputation and the more responsible it approaches its service.

Before contacting a particular medical facility, you should find out about the doctors who work there. Typically, curriculum vitae can be found on the official website. A good clinic hires doctors with extensive experience (the minimum acceptable experience is five years, but the more, the better, of course). Professional qualities matter: it is good if the doctor has a doctor’s degree of the highest category or is a candidate of sciences, but the main thing is that he regularly improves his qualifications. Dental science is developing very dynamically, every now and then new treatment technologies appear, so it is important that doctors undergo training at least once a year.

Continuing to talk about doctors, it is necessary to emphasize the importance of specializing in a particular procedure. A wide profile and versatility is a wake-up call: most likely, such a doctor will not be able to perform any work with high quality.

As in any other area, when choosing a dental clinic, you can and should read the reviews of other patients. But only those that relate specifically to your procedure will be useful – the quality of performing other manipulations will hardly tell you anything. Here prosthetics can be done well and it is not important to whiten teeth.

Pay attention to how the clinic’s obligations are spelled out in the contract. Is she not ready to take responsibility for possible complications? In this case, it is better to think twice than to trust her with your health.

And, of course, we must not forget about the guarantee conditions that dentistry provides to the patient. It is important that this is a guarantee not only for the implant or filling, but also for the doctor’s work: if a problem arises, it must be fixed free of charge.

We hope that our advice will help you avoid many pitfalls, and you will never encounter unqualified doctors, poor-quality treatment and unscrupulous dentistry. Do not forget: if you are unhappy with the result and have reason to suspect the doctor of unfair attitude to work, you have the right not to pay. Be healthy and smile more often!