Healthcare costs - not insurance Going public - dental work for child

my son has enamel hypoplasia which means his two back molars will have to be extracted and two molars at the bottom filled. The condition means his teeth are very porous and fragile to holes etc so it has to be done, I went private and got an estimate of 3k to include a general anesthetic….he has to get this as he is already scared of dentists as it is and I don’t want him to go through the extractions awake …

Has anyone gone public instead and is there a long delay…I just can’t afford this 3k bill at the moment …any advice ? Thanks

Not familiar with your particular situation but my son qualified for free orthodontics. He had a huge overbite you can image how bad to qualify we waited 18 months on a list and no sign of anything. The only think I can say is that the delay did impact the overall outcome. With growth we could have gotten a slightly better alignment if we had started immediately. It was during Covid and was awkward arranging appointments.

I totally get the financial strain, we did end up getting his work done privately I just regret the missed time frame. Maybe give them a buzz it was a dentist in the primary care system that told me to get it resolved sooner rather than later. I had called to see where we were on the list and he said look if it were at all possible to get the treatment started. The waiting times may be less for your situation but I would really recommend calling and speaking to them and getting some insight. I often think we are not direct enough and I include myself in that.

Thanks ..will do

Need to be a bit more practical, would the cost be much different with just a local anesthetic ?

I would love if a local could be used but he will not like the extractions …..is there a light sedative they can use so he is semi asleep.

Are you sure the public system will actually give an option of general ? It ties up a lot of resources.

We went private to an orthadontist for different treatment after being told of a 2 year delay minimum. Bear in mind that for the cost, you may be able to offset it against tax if you do an income tax return so you may get something back in time.

You don't say what age your son is but the public system is fairly non-existent. Children are supposed to get three free dental check-ups in primary school; my DD is in secondary and has only recently been called for her first check-up. We have paid privately for our kids. A girl in my daughters class in school has the same issue as your DS and she paid to have the teeth filled (no extractions), she was waiting to be called for the free HSE visit and the childs teeth had gotten worse in the interim. Could you go ahead with the fillings and hold off on the extractions.
There was a principal from a school in an underprivileged area interviewed on the RTE news relatively recently who said that most kids in her school (up to the age of 13) had never been near a dentist.
Regarding orthodontics the HSE will only treat the most severe cases and you'll likely be waiting for that too.

GAAmam said:

There was a principal from a school in an underprivileged area interviewed on the RTE news relatively recently who said that most kids in her school (up to the age of 13) had never been near a dentist.

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I heard that and it struck me that many of the kids probably have a mobile phone with a monthly plan. 60 euro will get a visit to a dentist, the parent needs to decide the priority rather than saying my kids teeth rotted because of waiting for public system.

Around 6 years ago my daughter needed 3 teeth extracted, in a similar situation. She was born with very poor quality porous baby teeth. She was also an extremely nervous patient and a mouth breather and found it difficult to get an work done in the chair. We were advised to get the work done under aesthetic approx. cost €3k in the beacon ( we had private health insurance at the time but it didn’t cover hospital or aesthetic costs)

I brought her to the public heath dentist and we waited approx. 3 months to have the work done through HSE all carried out in Mater Private ( we are Dublin) surgery went well and without issue.

She did have orthodontic work done privately costing us around €7k expander 3 years and fixed braces 1.5 years. She qualified publicly for this but the wait was much longer.

I would suggest finding who your HSE dentist is, your primary school will tell you this. Call and ask for an urgent appointment and they can advise on process for extraction under aesthetic.

Thanks for the good advice..I’ve called them and waiting on an appt