Have a great vacation in the Land of Smiles (plus change in your pocket) for having your dental work in Thailand.

OK, it is true I am no fan of the dental business in the USA.  Their rates are astronomical.   A lot of people may not see all those high rates because they have dental insurance.  Since I have always been employed by myself, I have avoided this insurance expense for my employees (including me), so I have always seen and paid my dental bills in full.  Wow.  The costs for dental treatment in the US between 1998 and 2008 increased at a higher rate than medical care, and far exceeded the increases in inflation.  Dental insurance costs have skyrocketed over the last decade, and many companies are no longer making this part of the employee benefits.  So now more Americans, like most self employed people, are seeing their total dental costs, with most or all coming out of pocket.  (reference: The American Way of Dentistry – Slate).

A typical dental office in the US has one dentist (sometimes two, but not often), and that dentist hops from patient to patient (sometimes working on three or four patients at the same time) to maximize income (your money).  That one dentist is presumed to be an expert in every kind of dental work:  crowns, filings, cleanings, X-rays, tooth pulling, and extraction of all available funds from the pockets of patients.

Thailand dentist offices usually work on a different concept.  A Thai dental office (clinic or sometimes a “dental hospital”) will generally have several dentists.  In the Bangkok dental hospital that I personally have had work done, there are 13 doctors of dentistry.  One will be an expert on root canals, another on crowns, another on simple filings, and on and on.  As a patient at a good Thai dental hospital or clinic, you are likely to be involved with two or three different dentists that work in their specialty.  Thai dental clinics are as modern as any typical American dental office, or better.  From what I have seen in my non-scientific study getting my teeth fixed is that Thai dental clinics have more modern equipment and seem much higher on the technology scale than your typical little American dental office.  The quality of work in Thailand at a good dental clinic is on par or superior to the work you get in the US in my opinion (and from everyone else that I know that has work done in Thailand).

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