What dental work really costs (and why nobody will give you a number)

Ring five dental clinics. Ask what a crown costs.

You will hear "it depends" five times.

Here is the honest part. That answer is true. A dental price is not a price tag, it is a diagnosis. Nobody can look at your tooth down a phone line, and a number given without looking is a guess dressed up as a quote.

Here is the other honest part. "It depends" is also the easiest place in the world to hide. It is true often enough that a clinic can say it forever and never be caught out. So you hang up knowing exactly as much as you did before you rang.

That is the real problem. Not that dental work costs money. That you cannot find out what it costs until you are already in the chair.

So this article does two things. First it shows you what actually moves your number. Then it gives you four questions that pull a real one out of any clinic in Australia, including ours.

What you have probably already tried

You are not new at this. Most people work through the same four moves before they give up.

Ringing around for the cheapest number. The trouble is you are not comparing like with like. One clinic quotes a crown. Another quotes a crown plus the build-up underneath it. A third quotes the crown but not the root canal it sits on. Three numbers, three different jobs, and no way to tell from a phone call.

Looking it up online. A number online is an average of thousands of mouths. None of them are yours. It is useful for knowing the size of the thing. It is useless for knowing your own.

Going overseas. The saving is real. So is the flight home. One of our patients, Brandon, put it plainly in his review: "I was thinking of going overseas to have all on 6 done, but I have thought if something went wrong or i got an infection I will have to fly back to get it fixed." He had it done here instead. Work that takes months of adjustments needs a dentist you can drive to.

Waiting until it hurts. This is the expensive one, and it does not feel expensive at the time. Most decay starts quiet, with no ache at all, hidden between teeth or under an old filling. The same small spot that needs a simple filling this year can need a root canal, a crown, or the tooth out later. You did not save money. You changed which treatment you were buying.

Why one crown is not one price

Five things move almost every dental quote. None of them are secret.

How much of the tooth is left. A crown on a solid tooth is one job. A crown on a tooth that needs building up underneath first is two.

What is under the gum. An implant needs solid bone to hold it. If bone has shrunk where the tooth was lost, it has to be rebuilt first. That is a real extra step, and nobody can see it without a scan.

Which material you choose. The crown is the tooth people actually see. Materials differ in strength and finish, and the choice is partly yours.

Whether something has to come out first. If a broken tooth is still sitting in the gap, removing it is its own small procedure with its own price.

How you want to feel during it. Local numbing is part of the visit. If you want deeper sedation so the day passes quietly, that is a separate item on the quote.

Read that list again and notice something. Every one of them is a fact about your mouth, not a decision about your wallet. That is why the number cannot come first. The look has to.

Read more: What actually decides your implant price

The four questions

Here is the part worth keeping. Ask these, in this order, of any dentist. Write the answers down.

1. Is this price the whole job, or one part of it?

This single question catches most of the trouble. A cheap implant advertised as one low number is often quoting the titanium post alone. The abutment and the crown arrive later, on a second invoice. Ask whether the number you were just given is a finished tooth or a component of one.

2. Can I have it itemised, in writing, before we start?

Not a total. A list. Every line, named, with its own price. A clinic that can produce that list has already planned your case. A clinic that cannot has not.

3. What is not included?

The follow-up visits. The scan. The temporary crown while the real one is made. The adjustment six weeks later. These are ordinary parts of treatment, and they belong on the quote, not in a surprise.

4. What happens if you open it up and find something else?

Sometimes a tooth is worse than the x-ray showed. That is normal. What is not normal is hearing about it afterwards. Ask what happens if the plan changes. The answer you want is that everything stops, you are told, and you decide.

What a real quote looks like

It is written down. It is itemised. It is in your hands before anything begins, not read out while you are lying back with a bib on.

That is the standard we hold ourselves to, and it is the one thing on this page you should hold every dentist to, ours included. You get your options and the price before anything starts, and you decide. If a practice will not put it in writing, you have learned something useful about that practice.

The two prices we do publish

Most dental prices cannot be published honestly, for the reasons above. Two of ours can, because they are the same for everybody.

A full check-up and clean is $249. That is a $399 value. It covers your exam, your scale and clean, fluoride, and any bitewing x-rays you need. We claim your health fund on the spot, so you tap your card and pay only the gap. Many funds cover it in full.

An implant consult and 3D scan is free. It is normally $347. That visit is where the guessing stops and your own number is worked out, itemised, in writing.

Those are the two doors in. Everything else gets quoted after somebody has looked.

If the number is real and still too big

That happens, and it is not the end of the conversation.

We claim on the spot with nib, HCF, Westfund, Latrobe and most major funds, so you only pay the gap at the desk. Beyond that there are three ways to spread it. Our own in-house plan, Bitesize, runs from $2,500 to $25,000 at 0% interest, with a soft credit check that does not touch your rating. DentiCare offers 0% plans up to $15,000 with quick online approval. And some people can use early release of super to cover care on medical grounds, through SuperCare.

Read more: Health funds, payment plans and how to spread the cost

The bottom line

You have two ways to go from here.

You can keep ringing around, collecting numbers that are not comparable, for treatments nobody has confirmed you need. That is what most people do, and it is why most people put dental work off for years and pay more for it in the end.

Or you can get one thing. A written, itemised price for your actual mouth, from someone who has looked at it. Then you can decide with your eyes open, including deciding not to.

That is what a consult is for. It is not a commitment to treatment. It is how you find out what you are deciding about.