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352 points keithly | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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pandatigox ◴[] No.41845382[source]
Current final year dental student pitching in here. While dentists of the past may push for unnecessary annual radiographs, the curriculum in dental school has changed to favour evidence-based dentistry. Annual bitewings are only indicated if you're a high caries risk, and, as the article mentions, 2-3 years if you're low caries risk. So your younger/newer dentist will be following much better protocols (and hopefully not scamming you)!
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mtalantikite ◴[] No.41848929[source]
I started going to a new dental office a few years back with a bunch of younger staff here in Brooklyn. They clearly spent a ton of money on the build out, and all the dentists were probably 30s/40s. They did the typical "you skipped your x-rays last checkup, you're now 1.5 years behind. You need to do those now" thing. When I asked how much it'd cost out of pocket, they told me an update was $80. I thought "oh wow, I guess these new machines are just better and cheaper, as technology tends to go". They did them and then the dentist came in, told me that there was some feint thing on one of my molars that might possibly be a cavity and they should do a filling now. The hygienist seemed surprised, so I declined and said let's keep an eye on it. Went out to pay at the front desk, and nope, it was $80 per x-ray, (so $320), plus $150 for the dentist to try and sell me a cavity filling, plus the base price of the cleaning. I got upset, since that wasn't communicated to me, and they knocked off some of the x-ray cost.

I never went back. I found an older dentist and every patient in the office was a retiree, which made me feel confident they knew what they were doing (I'm sure they've got a lot of hard cases). I asked about the possible cavity and they said they saw nothing, everything is fine.

That's all just to say that the young dentists likely have a lot of debt between school and office build outs, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're up-selling services to try and get their practice out of it. I wouldn't trust them any more to be honest about practices just because they're young.

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reneherse ◴[] No.41849088[source]
My guess is the dental practice was owned by a private equity firm and the young docs were "just following orders".

Highly capitalized, expensive leasehold improvements plus obscure pricing and surprise charges seem to be the typical playbook of that business model.

Reliable doctor-owned dental practices seem to be increasingly hard to find, at least here in the urban Southeastern US

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r00fus ◴[] No.41850071[source]
Private Equity taking over all businesses is going to be our undoing.
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1. DowagerDave ◴[] No.41850922[source]
Having been through more "classic" VC a couple of times and now PE as well I agree. PE is so much more nefarious and damaging. When you take 100+ M of VC gasoline and pour it on the fire everyone can see what's happening. PE funds want juicy annual returns of free cash and a multiplier sell out; it puts revenue pressure and forces cost control that destroys successful businesses in one funding cycle that might have been doing just find for decades. And nobody but the C-suite and investors gets rich.