Practicing a profession, but never actually performing it. Illegal?

[The motor guy]

Doctors do this all the time. Theyll just refer you out to someone, but won't ever treat anyone. Dentists seem to do the same thing. Like how I told them I wanted a tooth pulled, even told them which one, but then still took my $300 exam fee and referred me to someone else cause I guess they don't pull teeth. That's like me being a roofer that charges to go up on someone's roof, but doesn't actually fix it and hasn't ever actually fixed a roof before. Why waste a person's time and money like that? Is that even legal? Especially when you already told then what the problem was and asked ahead of time, do they repair roofs?

 

[walterjay]

The system is broken

 

[slo town]

Best to have an oral surgeon pull a tooth.

Scott

 

[JayhawkRoy]

If you know you need a tooth pulled, go to an oral surgeon. Skip the middleman. He spent time with you, so some kind of charge would be appropriate for this time. You may want to change general dentists. My past dentist (20 yrs before he had to quit practicing) would do a short exam that cost less than a regular normal exam. $300 is relatively high (my next exam/cleaning/xray appt will run $274.

 

[The motor guy]

Best to have an oral surgeon pull a tooth.

Scott

Well I know that now. Also I guess when you pay out of pocket you can just go directly to whoever without a referral, but this isn't about my tooth. I've seen this before in all kinds of professions. Besides, that dentist flat out lied to me about pulling teeth. I asked on the phone before setting the appointment up

 

[Ronsant]

Well I know that now. Also I guess when you pay out of pocket you can just go directly to whoever without a referral, but this isn't about my tooth. I've seen this before in all kinds of professions. Besides, that dentist flat out lied to me about pulling teeth. I asked on the phone before setting the appointment up

That alone would be reason for me to change dentists.

 

[The motor guy]

That alone would be reason for me to change dentists.

Then he had a mile long list of other things wrong that got me sidetracked on what the primary reason for my initial visit was. After all that I didn't even ask about the tooth. Just knew he referred it out.

 

[Astro14]

Doctors do this all the time. Theyll just refer you out to someone, but won't ever treat anyone. Dentists seem to do the same thing. Like how I told them I wanted a tooth pulled, even told them which one, but then still took my $300 exam fee and referred me to someone else cause I guess they don't pull teeth. That's like me being a roofer that charges to go up on someone's roof, but doesn't actually fix it and hasn't ever actually fixed a roof before. Why waste a person's time and money like that? Is that even legal? Especially when you already told then what the problem was and asked ahead of time, do they repair roofs?

You paid for that doctor's time, evaluation, and service.

You got a service, you paid for it.

Nothing illegal about that.

Doctors aren't obligated to do what you tell them, that's not how medicine works, they have ethical codes that they follow, and they are not going to let you self-diagnose and demand their services without making their own, independent, assessment of your condition, and the treatment that is needed..

 

[eljefino]

Doctors are good at (bad at) dragging one simple problem out across multiple visits. "Why don't you put some ice on it?"

Ya gotta advocate for yourself.

 

[PWMDMD]

As a pediatric dentist, I never beg anyone to come see me. People call and say my kid has a tooth ache or a cavity I want them to see you. MOST of the time I can help them, but SOME of the time I need to refer them. Why? Peds patients don’t typically need root canals on adult teeth and so the last time I did a root canal on an adult tooth was 20 years ago. The two or three kids out of thousands I see per year who need it are better served by an endodontist who does it 8x per day 5 days per week and not me who’d do it twice per year. I don’t extract 3rd molars or do ortho and while I do extract teeth, if little Johnny is such a basket case that his behavior makes it unsafe, he gets to go to the oral surgeon and go to sleep to do it safely. No, I’m not trained or qualified to administer propofol and sevoflurane to a 3 year old who needs 10 teeth extracted. But, I do deserve to get paid for the time MOM and DAD asked of me to diagnose any get little Johnny to the right person. If you don’t like it, don’t call me and ask for an appointment.

 

[The motor guy]

As a pediatric dentist, I never beg anyone to come see me. People call and say my kid has a tooth ache or a cavity I want them to see you. MOST of the time I can help them, but SOME of the time I need to refer them. Why? Peds patients don’t typically need root canals on adult teeth and so the last time I did a root canal on an adult tooth was 20 years ago. The two or three kids out of thousands I see per year who need it are better served by an endodontist who does it 8x per day 5 days per week and not me who’d do it twice per year. I don’t extract 3rd molars or do ortho and while I do extract teeth, if little Johnny is such a basket case that his behavior makes it unsafe, he gets to go to the oral surgeon and go to sleep to do it safely. No, I’m not trained or qualified to administer propofol and sevoflurane to a 3 year old who needs 10 teeth extracted. But, I do deserve to get paid for the time MOM and DAD asked of me to diagnose any get little Johnny to the right person. If you don’t like it, don’t call me and ask for an appointment.

I shpuld have called someone else when they said they pull pre molars but still needed to do a full exam. That was the red flag I guess.

 

[Nukeman7]

I think the OP voiced his disdain for the dental profession a year ago in this BITOG post. No need to resurrect a similar rant on this board today.

 

[Passport1]

Practicing a profession, but never actually performing it. Illegal?​

No, journalists do it constantly.

 

[PWMDMD]

I shpuld have called someone else when they said they pull pre molars but still needed to do a full exam. That was the red flag I guess.

People say they need X, Y, Z all the time and they are wrong. The only way to know what someone needs is to do an exam and take a radiograph. You have no idea how many times per day a parent calls and says little Sally has one problem and it’s another problem. For example:

1. My kid lost part of his baby tooth and there’s still a piece stuck in the bone. The reality is it’s the erupting tooth and completely normal.

2. My kid’s tooth is loose and he has an abscess and he needs antibiotics. The reality is it’s a normally exfoliating baby tooth that will fall out on its own.

3. My kid needs his tooth pulled because another tooth is coming in behind it. The reality is this is normal, the baby tooth has gross mobility, and 99% of the time falls out with no intervention.

4. My kid has pain and a white bump and an abscess or cavity that needs to be fixed or a tooth that needs to be pulled or whatever. The reality is the kid has either a traumatic or aphthous ulcer that will heal with no intervention.

You see, people claim to know what they need ALL the time and they are correct about 5% of the time. So to avoid the chaos and wasted time and overhead of setting up for one procedure when Timmy needs another or nothing at all, we want to see little Timmy for an exam first, explain to the parents what is or isn’t going on, and then give them options. I’m not a barber, you’re not coming in and telling me just take a little off the top. You’re coming to me for my diagnostic skills and to educate you on what’s going on and what the safest and best course is going to be, even if that’s sending you to someone else.

This may seem like a waste of time to you but it’s about $100 in supplies/overhead to setup a room and about $400 per hour in overhead to have a room out of commission for one hour for a procedure that may not need to happen. So, as a business owner, I say too bad, I’d go bankrupt listening to patient self diagnoses over the phone. As a dentist, this leads to better informed patients and better care.

 

[The motor guy]

I think the OP voiced his disdain for the dental profession a year ago in this BITOG post. No need to resurrect a similar rant on this board today.

I should have used a different example. I didn't intend for it to go down that route.

 

[Jdeere562]

Probably a stupid question: Why are molars so difficult to extract? I have never been to an oral surgeon.
All my molars were pulled by 3 different local, small town dentists with no suggestions otherwise.

 

[PWMDMD]

Probably a stupid question: Why are molars so difficult to extract? I have never been to an oral surgeon.
All my molars were pulled by 3 different local, small town dentists with no suggestions otherwise.

They are big, they can have gnarly bends in their roots, they can be close to the maxillary sinus or the inferior alveolar nerve, they can be really broken down and just crumble during elevation requiring surgical extraction raising a flap and removing bone, the people attached to them can be nutters who need sedation, there can medical reasons, the socket may need preservation for an implant, sometimes the implant can be immediately placed if the OS or perio does the extraction and implant or they can be really straightforward and easy to extract and everything in between.

 

[Astro14]

I should have used a different example. I didn't intend for it to go down that route.

It’s pretty clear that you have a problem with the medical profession, and with dentists in particular.

If you think it’s such a scam, and you think it’s so easy, why don’t you join them?

In this thread, and in the previous one, you clearly think that you are smarter than the dentist with whom you were dealing. You know more about their profession than they do.

All you need to do is go get your college degree, be in the top 1% of your class, get into medical school, borrow about $300,000 to do that, and then spend six years in residency, not getting paid very much, barely able to make your student loans.

In 14 short years, you can be in the position of power, and you can command the salary that they do.

Since you’re so much smarter, you don’t have to do it the way they do, you could allow people to diagnose themselves, and then simply perform the procedure they want, whether or not they need it done, right?

What’s really annoying about your set of suppositions is that you assume that the dentist is not actually practicing his profession, but in fact he is, he is protecting the patients from their own misdiagnoses, their own errors, their own misconceptions, and all of the wild guessing.

Your Google search, your understanding of your condition, does not equal a medical degree. The doctors have a responsibility to ensure the condition, to actually diagnose what is going on before they perform any operation. To do less than that would be unethical.

So, you went to see a doctor and you paid for his expertise and you paid for his diagnosis.

You got a bargain. Even if you don’t recognize it.

 

[GSCJR]

So, as a business owner, I say too bad, I’d go bankrupt listening to patient self diagnoses over the phone. As a dentist, this leads to better informed patients and better care.

+1

I'm not in the medical field, but I learned this in trade school, don't let your clients tell you what they need. Have a conversation about why they request a specific repair/service, then advise next steps; communication is key. I did this when I ran an automotive repair facility.

 

[The motor guy]

People say they need X, Y, Z all the time and they are wrong. The only way to know what someone needs is to do an exam and take a radiograph. You have no idea how many times per day a parent calls and says little Sally has one problem and it’s another problem. For example:

1. My kid lost part of his baby tooth and there’s still a piece stuck in the bone. The reality is it’s the erupting tooth and completely normal.

2. My kid’s tooth is loose and he has an abscess and he needs antibiotics. The reality is it’s a normally exfoliating baby tooth that will fall out on its own.

3. My kid needs his tooth pulled because another tooth is coming in behind it. The reality is this is normal, the baby tooth has gross mobility, and 99% of the time falls out with no intervention.

4. My kid has pain and a white bump and an abscess or cavity that needs to be fixed or a tooth that needs to be pulled or whatever. The reality is the kid has either a traumatic or aphthous ulcer that will heal with no intervention.

You see, people claim to know what they need ALL the time and they are correct about 5% of the time. So to avoid the chaos and wasted time and overhead of setting up for one procedure when Timmy needs another or nothing at all, we want to see little Timmy for an exam first, explain to the parents what is or isn’t going on, and then give them options. I’m not a barber, you’re not coming in and telling me just take a little off the top. You’re coming to me for my diagnostic skills and to educate you on what’s going on and what the safest and best course is going to be, even if that’s sending you to someone else.

This may seem like a waste of time to you but it’s about $100 in supplies/overhead to setup a room and about $400 per hour in overhead to have a room out of commission for one hour for a procedure that may not need to happen. So, as a business owner, I say too bad, I’d go bankrupt listening to patient self diagnoses over the phone. As a dentist, this leads to better informed patients and better care.

I was right. He said the tooth needed to be pulled.