Gum surgery can be your worst nightmare
By Simon Chobod
___________________________________________________
This nightmare starts innocuously enough. You walk into a dental office to be greeted by a nice looking female assistant
in a short skirt. The girl smiles at you: "Please make yourself comfortable. The doctor will be with you in a moment.
Let me fill up the forms for you. What type of medical insurance do you have?"
Twenty minutes later the same girl smiles at you again: "You have very beautiful teeth. You would like to keep them, don't you?
The doctor just told me that you will loose your teeth in a few short years, if you don't treat your gums condition.
He proposes to start with an operation."
You jump in your seat: "No one told me about an operation. My dentist referred me to have my teeth cleaned. Nothing more than that."
The girl has seen it all before: "How lucky you are to come to us. Your dentist is not a specialist.
He referred you to us because he saw deep pockets in your gums. Any pocket over 3 mm deep can't be cleaned by you.
That is why we need to cut your gums to get your pockets to a manageable size.
Don't worry, it is a very minor surgery. By the way, I already checked with your insurance - they will cover the costs."
You just had fallen a victim to a gum surgery scam. It involves useless gum surgery, which includes cutting open the gums,
scraping out any infection and then sewing up your gums again. You are not alone - insurance industry specialists estimate
that more than half of gum-cutting surgeries performed in the US are not necessary.
What is the reason for their popularity? They are extremely profitable.
For a relatively simple operation, which takes twenty minutes, a doctor can charge more than ten thousand dollars.
By the way, 20% of that amount usually goes as a referring fee to the dentist that sent you to their office.
That is enough money to influence any doctor's opinion. And doctors can always convince themselves that they are not lying.
Gum disease is bad for your teeth. What they "forget" to tell you - there are many other ways to treat it.
Most of them do not involve surgery.
|
