3900.00 for a three tooth bridge!!!!!! Plus 200 for a tooth extraction.....
Don't know how we're going to pay for it. 
.
= new reply since forum marked as read
A lot of people find it cheaper to fly to Mexico and have it done, even with the cost of the airfare..
I feel for you, my estimate is about $3500 for everything I need done, it might as well be $35,000 at this point..
A tooth or the partial broke on one of my visits to Vietnam. I was staying with Vietnamese friends and a guy in the neighborhood (not really a peasant) happened to do dental work in his living room.
The guy had assisted U.S. military dentists during the war. After the war he pored over dentistry textbooks and scrounged equipment and supplies. He installed a scrounged dental chair in his living room and began taking patients.
The partial he made for me was better than anything I had gotten from the U.S. military or the VA. I didn't give him the 25 bucks he asked for. (I thought he deserved a lot more to help with his education. 
)
Historically, dentistry was cosmetic - basically pulling bad or painful teeth and fitting dentures to replace them (rather than medical services for the mouth), which was why you went to your barber to get your dentistry done - a good barber was trained in various cosmetic methods to help one look acceptable. It was technical work back in the day - my great-grandfather was a barber/dentist up until the 1920's, until California required all dentists to be licensed through a representative professional association as they did doctors and surgeons.
Likewise, anything dealing with correcting vision was pretty much done by a person with a scientific background who had trained himself (or herself) to work with lenses to bring objects into focus. If you didn't read or drive, it usually didn't matter if your vision was poor, so glasses were something professional people or wealthy people needed.
Neither service required a hospital or medical clinic services. While there was a historic "split" between doctors, pharmacists, and surgeons in terms of technical requirements and education, all considered medical professions. Dentistry was a cosmetic profession (it was nice to have teeth, but you didn't need them to eat), and optometry provided a "tool" that wasn't required to survive in most cases.
That's the "traditional" reasons.
Cost is another reason. Yearly dental visits and dental maintenance are more expensive than yearly medical visits, and people who go to the dentist typically either "don't need the services" or need lots of service. That's ends up insurance wise as sort of a half and half situation - half the people who go to a dentist regularly don't need to go other than as a checkup and cleaning costing at least twice as much and lasting far longer than an annual doctor's visit and lab work does, and half go in needing xrays, drilling and fillings, crowns, non-cosmetic braces, or other expensive services. Also, the issue of what is medically necessary and what is cosmetic comes into question - especially with orthodontia.
Likewise, most people don't need the time and expense to see an optometrist on a yearly basis and can make due with a doctor with an eye chart; going to see and optometrist also requires an extended visit using equipment that is expensive to maintain just to verify that there has not been a change in vision quality. Also, purchase of corrective lenses and frames can wander into the cosmetic zone, and lord knows, insurance can't cover things that are purchased just because they help the patient "look nice" or look more professional.
Now, dental and optical is considered medical care when it comes to reconstructive or a symptomatic situation where there is an underlying medical or situational cause (rather than hereditary or "poor habits/lack of care"
. But including those as part of medical care needs to be carefully documented to be covered (i.e., accident insurance claims), and they can't be the primary reasons to seek medical care.
I do know someone who got dental care included due to cancer of the jaw. But that's not a way that I would want my dental to be covered...
Anywhere, there's my guess.
Haele
