NHS Dental Costs vs Family Dental Plans

Added April 2010:
The details in this blog may be outdated or have changed since being published!

The NHS recently announced that dental charges in England would remain the same. That is to say, Band one, which covers just the basics or checkups, scaling and polishing, will remain at £16.50.

Band 2, which includes intermediate treatments such as fillings and extractions, is to stay at £45.60 and Band 3, which includes crowns bridges and dentures, is not going to move from its present £198.

The announcement came because of low increases in inflation over the previous twelve months and in an effort to keep prices at an affordable rate for patients.

The costs sound low and inviting but the NHS fails to remind us that those prices are per visit per person.

Let us put it into perspective, you have a beautiful smile and want to keep it that way so you have regular checkups two times per year. Sometime throughout the year, your tooth is broken or chipped. To keep that smile and to stop infection creeping into the tooth it needs to repair. The cost of one visit to repair one broken or chipped tooth is higher than a full year of dental insurance.

For less than the price of a burger a day at McDonalds, a family of two adults and four children can have healthy happy smiles on an insurance plan. That is something you cannot get on the NHS.

The NHS may seem like a less expensive option but taken over the course of a year, NHS dental costs are actually higher than dental plan.

Looking after your natural teeth while you still have them can only be done by maintaining a decent diet, a good, daily oral hygiene regimen and regular checkups with your dentist. Dental checkups are complete within a half hour and are very inexpensive. You can even get your dental insurance to pay for for a check-up or oral hygiene visit and really put a smile on your face.