Why is Dentistry so Expensive?

“A long, long time ago,
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile.” – D. Mclean

                The first three questions I usually get asked when telling a patient they need some type of treatment or another are in order:

1.       Is it going to hurt?

2.       How much does it cost?

3.       Is it covered by my insurance?

Sometimes in the mix of question and answer is “Why is dentistry so expensive?” My point is - cost isa always a factor (as it should be!). But how did dentistry or healthcare costs, for that matter, rise at such a rate over the latter half of this past century?

                Society may be headed for a progress trap. Our dependence on technology grows at an overwhelming pace and the very benefits we seek from this technology could ultimately be our downfall. Just as a vast supply of inexpensive food made in part abundant by advances in farming, food preservation and mass production has led ironically to many problems they meant to solve those being obesity, nutritional issues and causal links disease related to some of the chemicals used in modern food production. This is just one example of a progress trap. Because the natural tendency to correct a progress is to solve it with more technology and so it goes around and around like the famous Penrose steps illustration.

                What does this have to do with the cost of dentistry? Well healthcare (dentistry included) is falling into a progress trap. The very goals of education, advances in treatment, advances in technology, advances in administration, the development of pharmaceuticals, insuring patients safety, protecting patients against malpractice and third party systems all directed toward improving the health of our patients is actually driving the cost up to such a degree that we can’t afford to be healthy. Hence a progress trap.

               

                In the next series of articles I will attempt to discuss how some of these technologies and progressions in how we administer health and dental care have evolved into the current conditions and the impact these have had on the economics we are now challenged with.