What is dental tourism?
It’s travelling abroad to a country outside the UK for dental treatment.
Why would anyone go abroad for dental treatment?
Most British people who visit our dental clinic go abroad for lower prices, higher quality dental care and also the possibility to have treatment straight away with out usual wait or mutliple appointments.
How much can I save?
It depends on where you go. But most dental patients can save at least half to 70% of what they’d spend on an identical procedure in the UK.
What kinds of procedures do most patients seek?
Dental tourists from the UK typically seek dental implants, porcelain crowns, or veneers.
Will the NHS pay?
Maybe. At present, there is a European Directive being created to allow UK patients to have treatment abroad funded by the NHS. Of course there are a lot of questions about how it works exactly, so it pays to check our blog posts about European Directive on a regular basis.
How can I find a good dentist or dental clinic abroad?
Most important, check the dentists facilities, qualifications and experience. Check the clinics quality of communication with interested patients. Ask friends and family or others who have recently been abroad for dental treatment.
Can I sue if something goes wrong?
Yes, but not in a British court. You would have to file suit in the country where you were treated. Malpractice awards abroad are typically much smaller than those in the UK.
A detailed look into our dental tourism:
To have your teeth whitened at a London Harley Street Dental clinic costs £350 but £499 if you want them done in 45 minutes. That’s not including the initial consultation – “comprehensive new patient examination” as they call it – which costs £80. More serious work, such as a root canal, costs from £350. A single porcelain veneer will set you back £850, the cost of an African Safari for two.
You could take our a loan from the bank, but then again you could go on a dental holiday and have your crowns done for £397. Increasing numbers of people do, judging by the hundreds of people that Daniel and Dr. Marek communicate with each week looking into “dental tourism”. Private British dentists are ripping people off. NHS dentists just can’t deal with the numbers. Anything remotely cosmetic you’ll have to pay for yourself. Big jobs, such as dental implants, are rarely available on the NHS and your private UK dentist will charge between £1,500 and £2,000 for the work. With dental holiday a dental implant costs £1150 and the consultation is free.
About 3 British patients a day visit our dental practice, Piestany Dental Clinic, in Slovakia. People travel for all sorts of treatment but crowns, implant and bridge work are particularly popular because of the financial savings. And there’s the lure of spending a couple of days in a beautiful thermal spa.
Without budget airlines, medical treatment abroad would be unthinkable. But now Ryanair flies from Stansted, Luton, Bristol, Dublin, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Birmingham to Bratislava / Vienna airport.
Over the 4 years that we have been running our clinic, the increase in the number of people seeking treatment abroad has risen by 345%. Most people can’t get what they want — crowns, bridges, implants — on the NHS and so they go to a private dentist in the UK. Then they almost drop out of the chair when told the price, go home, get on the internet and find this dental holiday website. Once the patient starts communicating with our dental team via email, they are soon convinced that above standard but low-cost dental care can be had in Piestany Dental Clinic.
Lets have a look at a good example: if your UK dentist says that you need 12 crowns or units of bridgework at £450 a unit, that’s a total of £5,400. At our specialist dental clinic in Piestany spa the cost would be £2,400 with an experienced top dentist, a saving of more than £2,700 — more than enough to cover the cost of your budget flights and accommodation (our self-catering apartments costs £30 a night).