Jim Paggi
Posted on 04/05/2006 8:58:23 AM PDT by presidio9
You've heard of the "accidental tourist?" How about the dental tourist?
Jim Paggi was such a traveler.
The 56-year-old Benicia man went more than 6,000 miles to Hungary in March to get his teeth fixed for less than a third of the $50,000 or more it would have cost in this country.
"Everybody says, 'You're going where for what? What kind of vacation is that?' " Paggi said a few days after returning from two weeks in the central European nation. "I'm saying if you had my smile, you would do it, too."
Paggi is one of a growing number of Americans traveling to far-flung locales to undergo medical and dental procedures at affordable rates.
While statistics on medical tourism aren't available, the trend by all accounts is gaining steam. A growing number of countries, including India, Thailand and Singapore, are marketing medical and dental services to foreigners, boasting of "first world medicine" at cut-rate prices.
Patients from wealthier countries often travel to these destinations for some sun and relaxation, plus a hip replacement, vision correction or perhaps cardiac surgery.
Dental procedures are a common choice because only about 50 percent of Americans have insurance for such care. And those people who are insured often face stiff dental bills. Insurance plans, typically offered through employers, require patients to pay a significant share of the costs of procedures beyond standard preventive care.
Paggi's oral odyssey began in January after he consulted several dentists in the Bay Area and learned that the cost of work to repair his teeth could reach $60,000. Years of neglect and bacterial infections had caused Paggi's teeth to decay, a condition that had accelerated in the past few years.
"When my mom said to brush your
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Jim Paggi
A lot of people in southern california will go down to Mexico for cheap dental work. Based on what some of them have reported to me, its just as good a work as they could get up here and about 1/4 the cost.
A word to the wise -- don't got to England to get your teeth fixed.
My bad, THIS is Jim Paggi.
My sister had laser eye surgery in Colombia by the doctor who pioneered the procedure. Excellent work but I wouldn't say the cost was much less than here.
I had a cap come unglued here, and my dentist charged me $95 to recement it. Three months later I was in Volgograd, Russia and it came out again. I did not want to see a Russian dentist, but my wife insisted I see her's. When we arrived in his office I was suprised to see it looked and was equiped like American dentists in the eighties. The Russian cleaned the cap, mixed the glue, and then recemented it. When we got ready to leave I asked him how much, and he replied 20 Rubles, which at that time was 69 cents. BTW, the cap hasn't come out since that time.
2.) No dentist locally will touch those babies for even the most minor adjustment. Hope Jim does not mind spending at least $3-4000 more to have his new bite relationship and TMJ evaluated before having any type of service at home. I hope they started the same im Ungarn. Looks like that ol' collapsed Class ll bite we all love to open up. I see 3-5 more trips just for that.
3.) With the current exchange rate of the dollar against the Euro, I wonder why Jim and the writer do not know that many Europeans are coming this way for the same reasons. In the Silicon Valley, we have German and Swiss patients smart enough to opt out of the strange dental practices done under social medicine ( a third of Germans see private Zahnartzen ) that live here for a few months per year are also attempting to save more than a bit. The problems arise back home the same as here when a good dentist there needs to consider a patient's problem of a chipped tooth or something else minor with a comprehensive approach of the entire oral health. Many people will not tolerate new radiographs "because I just had them" (lot of good they are 5000 miles away) and want their practitioner to be psychics as well.
Enough said.
ping
And it glows in the dark so you don't have to turn on the light to brush your teeth!
So where are the horror stories?
LOL...I noticed you pinged theDentist! I happen to know him, but will not reveal his secrets...:)
This is really the most important part of the story. The guy is too stupid to use a toothbrush and floss daily.
Gratefully, I don't have one. But I easily could have.
Like Jim in the article, my dental hygiene was close to nonexistent for many years, until finally I had to do something about it.
I started about a year ago, with what's known as "quadrant scaling." I'll spare you the details, but think of if as as a "hyper-cleaning," with an ultrasonic tool that's...well, imagine a Water Pic souped up by Tim the Tool Man Taylor.
Since then, I've been on "peri-maintenance," which is a visit every three months instead of every six.
But that's not the bad news, that's the good news!
My expenditures are still in the upper hundreds -- not tens of thousands -- of dollars.
The dentist and his crew are compassionate, not dwelling on how close I was to being one of their "extraction and dentures" patients. But they knew and I knew.
My teeth, never perfect, are at least respectable again.
I didn't have to leave the country to find affordable care.
My point, if there is one, is this:
Even if you're in your 40's and have made all the stupid mistakes I have made, and if the last time you were in the dentist's office they didn't have to wear latex gloves, it's still probably not too late.
Bite the bullet (so to speak) and get yourself checked out.
You might be pleasantly surprised.
And then you can really enjoy your next vacation, in-country or out.
"Paggi's oral odyssey"
uh... nevermind...
Note that this is the Chronicle. The play on words was probably intentional.
I had three quadrants scaled in the last 5 years, the most recent one in February. Fortunately one quadrant doesn't need it. I came close to losing some teeth, but they were able to save them. The only thing is I have gaps that weren't there before between some teeth now.
My total expenses including what was covered by insurance plus my out of pocket is probably over $7,000.
I'm one. I also had Lasik done in Tijuana.
"Uhhh, actually I'm not one. I'm in Northern California."
Uh..so your previous post is...shall we say...null and void?
Snicker snicker snort chortle and a guffaw thrown in for good measure...:)
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