I’ve never had dental problems in my whole life, so I’m pretty naive. Recently I split a tooth (a baby tooth that never had an adult tooth come in to replace it) and my dentist advised me to see a dental surgeon to have it extracted. At the surgeon’s office, I got a huge marketing speal about the advantages of getting an implant instead of a bridge. Modern technology, lasts longer, no need to damage other teeth (as is required for a bridge), less chance of gum disease, etc. I asked the total price and was given itemized costs… I asked again for the inclusive cost and came up with $2200, which seemed pretty steep.
I stupidly thought “implant” included the crown/new tooth. Somewhere along the line, I found out that implant only means the screw they put in the bone. I’d have to go back to my regular dentist some months later for the crown. Did they tell me that after I was on oxycodon or was I stupid or in denial? I don’t remember.
Now I’ve got a screw where my tooth once was and I called my dentist to find out how much the crown will cost. One thousand six hundred dollars ($1600). I had no idea. If I’d known all this to begin with, I would have left the gap which wouldn’t even be visible anyway. Insurance might possibly cover $300 of the extraction only, but I’m not even sure of that.
Is this typical? Is this what normal people DO? How in the world did I get suckered into this? I can think of like a million other things I would do with this $4000 if I’d known.
What do other people do and how much do they/you typically pay for this kind of thing? I am considering going to Juarez, Mexico for the crown.
Around here a crown on a normal tooth is around $900, don’t know if the extra cost is because of the implant. I have read that implants are not cheap, around $2000 seems to be what I have heard.
I have/have had bad roots in several teeth, resulting in miscellaneous extractions, root canals, crowns, a bridge, etc.
After much discussion with my dentist, we eventually settled on a plan for me to get one implant in each jaw, the idea being those can be used to eventually hang dentures from as my roots continue to deteriorate.
So, last year I got the first implant in my lower jaw, and right now I am in middle of the process for the upper jaw implant.
As insurance pays zero for implants, I am using a flexible spending account to pay for them. The estimate of costs for this year’s implant was $2600.
I had 5 implants done. Difficult to get an exact figure for me, as I had an oral surgeon do many of the extractions (had to remove two impacted wisdom teeth as well), a periodontist do the implants (and bone grafting), and my regular dentist do the crowns, but I think it all totaled just under $20K, so a little under $4K per tooth.
Mine was either $3000 or $3200 including the crown and I had it done about 5 years ago. It was my front left canine tooth so a gap would definitely have been noticeable. My insurance didn’t cover any of the costs, luckily my mom paid for it (I was 20 at the time). Like you I had a permanent tooth that never came in; mine was lodged in my gums sideways. When I had braces as a teen, they actually tried to drag it out via a gold chain wrapped around the tooth and attached to the braces wire but it didn’t work, although it did for my sister.
We went with the implant option because we didn’t want to file away the teeth next to it for a bridge. I am very satisfied with it, the implant is a very close match to my other teeth and you would have to look very carefully to tell it’s fake. If I had to pay for it myself, I probably would’ve gotten the bridge, which my insurance did cover. Although if mine was in a spot that wasn’t visible, like yours, I don’t know if I would’ve gone for it. But I’ve never had a bridge so maybe they’re no hassle.
One thing to note is that there’s a small chance that the implant will fail. The first time my dentist, a specialist in prosthodontics, put in the implant it didn’t adhere to the bone correctly so he went in, scraped out some scar tissue or whatever and tried again. This time it took. He was nice and this second procedure didn’t cost me anything extra. He was pretty surprised this happened, I think he said it was one of the only cases he’d seen. Another thing to note is that the implant needs 6 months in order to adhere to the bone correctly. I’m sure a bridge is a much quicker procedure.
I hope this information helps you make the decision.
I just had to replace for the 2nd time a 3-part permanent bridge, i.e., this is the 3rd bridge in that spot. The 2 ends are crowns placed on what they call anchor teeth which were perfectly good before they were ground down to accept the bridge and the middle fills in a gap for a tooth that had to be taken out. Permanent bridges and crowns have to be replaced periodically–depends how they hold up (they are only cemented on) and whether your gums start receding with age. The last one lasted 15 years for me, which is a good run for such a thing. Each unit was $1000 this time so the bridge itself cost $3000. When my dentist removed the former bridge he found decay on one of the teeth under it so it required root canal first for another $1000. Total $4000. If an implant does away with replacements in the future, you will be glad you did it.
I have a bridge and would give a lot to have a second opportunity to make that decision. I hate the bridge. It destroys the tooth in front of and behind the gap requiring crowns and I’ve had problems wth every single crown I’ve ever had. Plus it’s a devil to floss.
That said, my decision was based on having no insurance at the time so I did the best I could.
Sorry that you didn’t understand up front all of the costs. They should have to give you a written estimate or something so that you can make an intelligent decision.
I did get an estimate. I just didn’t realize that an “implant” didn’t include the tooth; just the screw. I’m wondering how your implant was over a thousand dollars less, Johnny. And it wouldn’t matter if you had insurance; insurance doesn’t cover any of this stuff. It’s a crime.
I had a root canal fail and they said an implant would be about $1,500 and then about $700 for the crown. I chew on the other side… LOL
The thing you have to rememeber is that implants are great but they too can fail. So you can pay $2000+ dollars for a tooth and a year later you’re back to paying for a bridge if it fails. I don’t know any dentist that will guarantee it. Maybe some do.
I got smacked in the mouth, long story short, I had 9 root canals. Two failed in a year and I have one now that’s ten years old that’s failing.
Even worse crowns don’t color with age and so now my teeth don’t match. Luckily I don’t talk with a lot of teeth.
Even if the implant holds you’ll have to get new crowns eventually to match the teeth. If cost is going to be an issue, go with a bridge, it’s not as good but it’s close.
Let’s hope Obama puts dental in his health care reform. Yeah like that’ll happen
I’m in the UK and I’m having an implant put in next week. It’s costing me £2,600 which is a little over $4,000 US. If I had it done on the NHS I think it would still have been over £1,000, and I’d probably have to wait for months. And no, I don’t have insurance.
My husband looked into it about 7-8 years ago, and your price sounds about right. Also, another friend needed more extensive implant work and she paid $17K for hers (they use them to anchor bridges and such).
Oh…and they didn’t take. And no refund. Be very careful about who you choose, should you go this route. You need good bone to anchor them, blah, blah, blah. It’s a specialty and you don’t want to accept less than the best. But you knew that.
I’ve never had an implant, but I’ve had many crowns. It drained my savings rather too much. And I ought to have a few other of my back teeth fixed up with crowns, but I do not have the money for it, so that ain’t gonna happen until I am rich.
It’s frustrating as hell, isn’t it? The worst thing about getting the estimate for this sort of thing is that I simply don’t *understand *why a crown (**just **the crown, not the preparatory dental work) should cost more than a decent computer, or a 42 inch flatscreen, or for that matter, any individual piece of furniture that I own. Maybe there’s a very good reason, but no one has ever seen fit to share it with me.
It is my understanding that there are problems with just leaving a gap: your other teeth will move around and become uneven. This causes wear on the other teeth and leads to even more problems.
But yes, the cost of dental care is enormous, even with insurance: we have dental coverage, and a root canal is still $700 out of pocket by the time you are done, and my husband’s upper plate cost $2000.
I need extensive dental work and every time I have my teeth cleaned, I get the big sales pitch on implants. Dentists don’t seem to understand that I’m retired, have no dental insurance, and living on a fixed income. At my age, spending several thousand dollars on teeth is a poor investment. What I want are dentures and in this day and age, they seem hard to come by.
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