My dentist kept trying to bill me for services they didn't perform, stuff I didn't need, and they never got authorization from my insurance. I had to file a complaint against them. I got a lot of the charges taken off my bill. That's how my old dentist gets rich.....Always check your bill and find out form your insurance how much they are allowed to charge you.
I never pay my dentist until I receive the insurance claim report and only pay the "patient pays" amount.
On mayor work I always have the dentist obtain an insurance estimate of reimbursement (called a "treatment plan") before having the work done. That way I know ahead of time EXACTLY what it is going to cost me.
My daughter is currently in Dental School. I have seen firsthand the cost, and the workload. It is extreme. She has never been obsessed with money; she has just always wanted to be a dentist. I'm glad to see her making it happen.
While I also do a double-take when I see my dental bills, I know what he had to do to get there. If I had worked that hard (to get to be a dentist), I would expect to get paid really well for it too.
Do not take this to mean I approve of any Doctors, Dentists, hopitals, etc. defrauding patients with bogus charges. Those people should be held accountable.
But if a dentist wants to charge $600 to pull a tooth, that's his prerogative. Like previous posters have said, you should see what he is charging before you get the work done.
I was in school about three years total to get my Master's degree in teaching. That included student teaching and additional undergraduate courses that were required by my program. So I'm a little underwhelmed by the "they are in school a long time" argument. If teaching salaries weren't so much in the toilet, I might feel differently about it.
I am also a teacher, and fairly recently finished my Masters. Trust me when I tell you there is no comparing med or dental school to a MA in education in either the workload or the difficulty. Not dissing our profession, just stating what I have observed and experienced firsthand.
Perhaps. But considering that I had to come up with 60 typed pages within the first month of my program, it was definitely not for slackers.
I honestly don't begrudge physicians and dentists for making bank. But teacher's pay, which was always on the modest end of things, has just gotten pathetic by comparison. I doubt that the average physician or dentist worries about how they are going to replace a hot water heater, or how they will afford their next, modest used car. It's the very wide disparity that bothers me.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2015 10:12AM by summer.
The majority of the richest professionals in Lethbridge and area are dentists and dental specialists. And the majority are Mormons. They build $2M mansions.
...well, of the few dentists that I have gone to, some were getting paid by the number of holes they drilled. Maybe not all were warranted or needed, but...it's a dirty job........somebody's got to do it..........puke. Where's my sodium pentothal????
My brother, who is now deceased, was a dentist. He taught at a well known university, and had his own practice. He was a very well respected periodontist and had many speaking engagements. He also helped many families who could not afford dental procedures. His house was beautiful, but not ornate. His way of living was that of someone with success-trips every now and then, family well dressed, great gifts at Christmas, etc. But there is no way he could afford 45,000-55,000 for hunting trips.This leads me to believe there is something else going on with that dental practice. Also, I was talking to my neighbor that hunts and he stated that guy would have had to have had a map or at least knowledge of what was sanctuary and what was not. The fact that this poor animal was injured/tortured for 2 days and they tracked him for the kill is disgusting.
You've made a good point. Travel to east Africa alone isn't cheap, and then add in the cost for big-game hunting (maybe $30-50K for each trip; this guy has bagged multiple big-game animals,) and you have to wonder how he gets it.
I hope with all of my heart that this as*hole gets every one of his teeth knocked out with a baseball bat. Someone needs to be waiting near his car and ready with the bat.
I love the fantasy of him being naked in a small cage covered with tuna fish juice and then two hungry lions are placed in the cage with him. I get to film it and put it in you tube where every animal lover can love it.
The F*cker should have the punishment fit his crime. I am somewhat happy that the gov't of Zimbabwe is after him. If he goes to prison there, he won't get the red carpet (kiss the dentist's ass) treatment he would get in an American prison. I doubt they have protected prison populations vs general prison populations in Zimbabwe. That means he will last a few weeks maximum in their prison and then be killed. Oh so sad, NOT! So, after hoping the USA would prosecute this non-human slime, I am actually happy that it might be Zimbabwe that does.
He says he is real sorry now. He is only sorry because he is losing his patients and therefore his income is going down. I hope it disappears completely and that he doesn't qualify for any kind of welfare. He doesn't deserve it.
He beheaded the lion in order to mount the head on his wall. Well my desire is that he doesn't have any wall to mount anything on, no home, no nothing, just an African prison cell. I wonder what his wife thinks of this as*hole. He may not be married. If he is married, it is one of those Barbie and Ken marriages. For those of you who never played Barbie and Ken, Ken has no genitals. This slimy dentist is like Ken, no genitals. Any real man with an actual penis would not need to kill a beautiful animal to prove that he has a penis. He doesn't have one. That is a blessing too because that means he doesn't have kids, nobody to pass his evil onto.
I really hate non-human slime like this and YES this is how I really feel. If he died tomorrow, I'd have a huge party!!! I mean HUGE! I'd mortgage my house to pay for the kind of party I'd want to have to celebrate the end of a evil slime ball. Now that's a party.
Well, one of my kids became a dentist. More power to him! It took about 8 years of college to get there, and he needs to work for the air force for four years to pay them back for sending him to dental school. There are many ways to become well-off, if not rich, and they usually involve sacrifices. $175,000 per year may seem a lot, but nowadays that's just upper middle class. I made six figures (barely) last year and am still facing challenges keeping up financially. A dollar isn't what it used to be.
not all dentists are out to screw you. My dentist lives in the same middle class neighborhood that I do and he takes all the really shitty dental insurance plans, something that few of the dentists here in Central Texas seem willing to do.
I admire teachers and I have 2 teachers in my family and they work insanely hard for really low pay. Someone I know recently left the classroom (which he loved) to go to administration and his salary tripled!! Ridiculous! It's pathetic and as a nation we should change it. As a HS student planning my future, teaching was marked off largely because of the low pay.