And more importantly, what’s an “unreasonable” length of time to have to wait and/or jump from dentist chair to dentist chair?
I had a tooth suddenly get painful in March. Went to my new dentist. (My old dentist retired recently.) The tooth is all decayed (the reason it suddenly started hurting was because it had broken) and needs a root canal, so I get the referral to the endodontist and get the root canal. When that heals, I go back to the regular dentist and he says that the root canal had to take more of the tooth than he expected, so now I need a distal wedge procedure. One periodontal procedure and 5 more weeks of healing later, I made the appointment with my regular dentist to get the crown. That appointment was scheduled for today, but yesterday I got a call from the dentist at 8:45am (I wasn’t awake yet, so they left a message) saying they had an emergency and would have to reschedule. I’ve called them 9 times between yesterday and today to try to reschedule and can’t get a hold of them. So…
Anyway, it’s been 6 months and my tooth is still half-done. No crown. He “built it up” to make it ready for a crown, I guess. And I’ve gotten the distal wedge done. So it should be all ready. But does all the waiting and logistics and stuff really take 6 over months to get a crown sometimes?
And, of course, I don’t even have a temporary crown yet, so I expect it to take significantly longer than it already has.
Now, the rest of this is a tangent, but I kindof suspect this wasn’t a cavity like he said, but rather a resorption. Aside from this, I haven’t had a cavity in 20 years. But I just had a resorption about 2.5 years ago. In the corresponding tooth symmetrically across from this one that’s getting the crown. Also, my regular dentist’s dental hygenist and both the endodontist and periodontist remarked that they’ve never seen a cavity on the back of the back-most top tooth like this one before. (Tooth number 2 if you’re keeping track. I had my wisdom teeth out like 20 years ago-ish.) And guess where the resorption was 2.5 years ago? (I mean, it was a resorption, so it started inside the tooth, but when it finally got to the outside surface…) it was on the back of my backmost top tooth.
Anyway, that part’s just a rant, but yeah. Am I wrong to be pissed at being strung along this long?
Update: Still haven’t heard back from them. Called more times. I finally went there in person to see if I could get a human and there were a bunch of “sorry we missed you” notes from UPS/FedEx. Like, they weren’t at the office to receive packages. So… :\
Oh you sweet summer child.
Health insurance in the U.S. doesn’t cover teeth. What are you crazy? Dental issues aren’t medical issues, you see. They’re dental issues. And dental issues are a whole different thing. So if you want dental coverage, you need dental insurance specifically.
And it’s a lot more common not to have dental insurance than not to have medical insurance. Because I think not being “medical” insurance exactly, they’re less regulated and so can deny more of the claims that they get than medical insurance can. Which runs you the risk of paying monthly for it and then getting your claims denied when it really matters.
And I’m one of the ones who doesn’t have dental insurance. (Partially because as I said earlier, I haven’t had a cavity in 20 years.) So it’s me they’re milking, not an insurance company. To the tune of about $4,200 so far between the dentist, endodontist, and periodontist. I think that includes the cost of the crown (like, they had me pay in advance for the crown, which makes it even more infuriating that they’re putting me off).