How much does Social Welfare pay towards Examination, Scale & Polish.

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Bronco Lane

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How much do you pay for an examination, scale & polish to your dentist excluding any PRSI benefit.

Recently my dentist charged me €90 and also made a claim against my PRSI. A pretty basic clean I would think I got. Ran over the front of my teeth twice with a bit of CiF or similar.

How much was my €90 topped up by Social Welfare?
 
Bronco Lane said:
How much do you pay for an examination, scale & polish to your dentist excluding any PRSI benefit.
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According to this you should have paid no more than €15 for a scale and polish. Like theresa1, my dentist would also do the examination, but only charge €15 if nothing else was needed.

Dental Benefit​

Under this scheme, the DSP pays the full cost of an oral examination once a calendar year.​

A payment of €42 towards either a scale and polish or - if clinically necessary - periodontal treatment, is also available once a calendar year. If the cost of either cleaning or periodontal treatment is more than €42, you must pay the balance - capped at €15 for a scale and polish. There is no cap on the balance charged for periodontal treatment.

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/...-and-illness/treatment-benefit-scheme/#1c4757
 
In theory it's €15 extra plus PRSI but looks like they can charge what they want. I used to pay €50 extra for the basic clean but last year changed dentist and it's €15 with new dentist (not a new dentist as such, in business for years and was my previous one years ago so well established). Anyway the final straw for me was when the €50 dentist told me I needed ax extra clean which cost me €180 on top of the 50 quid one which I paid and when I went this year they said same thing and cost had gone up to €250! So I changed and my old dentist was happy enough with the one clean for the €15. Bit of a racket I think, I felt it was gone kind of 'do you want fries with that!'
 
What's really annoying is that I had a clean back in October 2024 plus an x-ray and examination of a tooth that was giving me some discomfort.

So the big cleaning job was done back in October.

I went back last week because the same tooth was acting up again. She said that she didn't know what was wrong with my tooth and recommended an extraction.......but wanted to send me to another dentist to do it?

She also took another x-ray of the same tooth despite taking x-rays of the same tooth last October. (€20 for yet another X-Ray.)

I was also charged €10 for a "bite adjustment". I have no idea what this is other than she shaved a bit from the tooth that she recommended needed an extraction.

Then she gave my teeth a bit of a polish on top of the clean I got last October from her. So she got the PRSI payment for 2024 and then 10 weeks later picked up another PRSI payment for 2025.
 
Reactions: POC
On a side note if the tooth you are having pain is on the top row of your mouth at the cheek it could be sinus issues and nothing to do with the tooth. I have had the same issue for years.
 
Bronco Lane said:
She also took another x-ray of the same tooth despite taking x-rays of the same tooth last October. (€20 for yet another X-Ray.)
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I have often wondered about this. Getting a number of x-rays each time I visit.

However having a tooth x-rayed in October and then again in January seems to be an invoice building exercise to me.
 
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