Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but my wife and I have been going to a very large dental practice for the last 10 years and have been noticing a huge effort to push the so called ‘deep cleaning’. Basically, it’s an additional teeth cleaning, except they do a little more work on the area below the gumline.
I am especially religious about going for the six month cleanings, brush twice a day, floss reasonably often, and yet every two years, they seem to want to do the deep cleaning. The previous 20 years of my life when I took far less good care of my teeth, no such service was ever requested or even offered. Naturally, this ‘extra’ is not completely covered by the insurance and seems to make them additional money since they are hitting you up three times a year instead of two. I have consistently gone in to get it when they ask to do it, but today both my wife and I were hit up for it, and they asked us “when was the last time you had a deep cleaning?”. This struck me as strange because that shouldn’t matter, should it? All that should matter is whether I need it. It felt like they were really asking “when was the last time you had it because the insurance carrier only allows us to hit them up every so often and we want to know if enough time has passed for us to hit the cash register again…”
Maybe I’m just paranoid, and when it comes to my health, I’m obviously going to do what I can to stay as healthy as possible, but something about this procedure struck me as somewhat “made up”. What say you on this? I’d particularly like to hear from anyone in the dental field, particularly any former hygenists who might fess up as to whether they have been asked to upsell this…