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I attended a wonderful cousins party today in Northern New Jersey. I saw a first cousin that I had not seen in 50 years as well as cousins that I had not seen for the usual 10 year period.
As is usually the case, people at parties want to discuss either negative outcomes in their dental treatment or the cost of dentistry.
One cousin told me that he broke a tooth while visiting one of his children in Portland, Oregon but that he was most fortunate to find a dentist who could do the treatment in one day because he had a machine that fabricated crowns in 20 minutes. My cousin told me that the dentist did root canal therapy AND placed the crown all in ONE appointment and as he barely finished his sentence, I said, "That root canal WILL fail!" He responded that he kind of knew that because the tooth still hurts unlike other root canals that he has had. As Dr. Banchs, one of the best root canal specialists in the world, has told me..."Many single visit root canals will fail."
Another cousin asked why dentistry cost so much. I respectfully informed him that:
1. When Susan and I got married we spent $9 a week on groceries or $3 a bag. Today, we spend $90 a week at the grocery store or $30 a bag.... That means that groceries have gone up 10 Times what we paid in 1971 and we ate meat back then.
2. When I began as a dentist, a crown cost $325 and today I charge $1350 or roughly 4 Times when I started.
3. A car in 1977 when I graduated dental school cost about $4,000 and today it is about $27,000 or 6.5 times the cost.
My point is that dentistry like everything else is very expensive but dentistry has increased far less than many other things in our life.
And yet another cousin told me about the Union dentist that he went to and.....well you get the point.
