one thing down!

[jazzfish]

My last six-month dental checkup was scheduled for my last day of work. It seemed awkward to take a couple hours off from my last day, so I just cancelled the appointment, and figured I'd get dentalized once I got where I was going.

It took a few months to get insurance straightened out, and by then I'd forgotten all about the dentist. So when I went in for a checkup today it'd been at least eighteen months since my last one.

Every time I go into a new dentist's office I'm amazed by the march of technology. Most of the 'scraping' was done by highly focused jets of water: all the sharpness with less of the horrid scrapy feeling. And not only do X-rays process immediately and load up in some Windows application, there's some sort of panorama X-ray camera that I stand more or less inside while it whirrs around my head. The future is a strange place.

No new cavities, which is something of a minor miracle. She wants to replace one crown (the twelve-year-old one), replace two ginormous and ancient fillings with crowns, and redo a couple of fillings that are next to crowns on the bottom. Next week, or the week after, I guess.

Total cost to me for a cleaning and a full set of X-rays: $31.37. If this be the fruits of socialized medicine, sign me up.

Comments

[tulip-tree.livejournal.com]

Wow, does BC actually include dental care in their provincial plan (the socialized part)? Ontario doesn't - it's covered under our employer-provided benefits, but I worry about people who don't have those benefits. Teeth are pretty important.

[jazzfish]

Sadly no, but I blame the general ease of dealing with my secondary insurance company on the prevalence of socialized medicine. It's almost like having basic standards for service means that other service providers will be expected to meet those standards too, or something.

And, yeah. Teeth and eyes both. It consistently weirds me out that those aren't considered part of basic "health" for insurance purposes.

[tulip-tree.livejournal.com]

Ah, got it - so that was what you paid after your secondary insurance paid their share. It's the same here in Ontario - dental and vision are not covered by the province. (Neither are prescriptions, although there's some kind of provincial coverage there for low income people without other secondary insurance.) We've got pretty excellent secondary coverage through both of our jobs, too.

I do agree that having the socialized system for most things makes everything seem to run a lot more smoothly. It's a good thing.