[wincy]

I got a doctor to pull an internal tooth that had formed a cyst around it, a maxillofacial surgeon.

The dentist quoted $1300 but said insurance wouldn’t cover it, it’d be out of pocket. The surgeon did it (I was awake with local anesthesia) for $300 but insurance paid an additional $4000.

Before all this, A PE owned dentist office (the one that didn’t have the six month wait) had told me two years before that the pain I was experiencing was because I had periodontal disease and that I just needed to get a periodontal cleaning (which cost $750 and didn’t help at all, also conveniently not done by a dentist but a dental hygienist). This turned out to be very dangerous because the cyst was pushing and wearing away at my nose bone, and if I’d waited any longer my nose may have sunk into my face.

It’s definitely maddening the hoops one has to go through to get proper dental care in the US.

[nradov]

Regardless of the financial and administrative issues, dentistry is still far more an art than a science. Go to 10 different dentists for any serious condition and you'll likely receive 10 different treatment plans. In most cases they're making good faith recommendations but there's a huge amount of subjectivity and personal bias involved.

Physicians have recently started embracing evidence-based medicine with documented best practice treatment guidelines so hopefully a similar cultural change will come to dentistry in time.