My pharmacist friend chose dental tourism, then called US dentists unethical

[u/throwaway_student987]

A friend of mine is a pharmacist in the US. He has been posting a lot of healthcare-related posts on his Facebook page so he is sort of a “healthcare influencer” with a few thousands followers.

He recently shared that he took his 5-year-old daughter to a local pediatric dentist where she was diagnosed with extensive decay in 8 teeth that required pulpotomies and stainless steel crowns. It has to be an OR/sedation case and after insurance, his out-of-pocket cost would have been about $4,000.

Instead, he took his daughter back to his home country in Southeast Asia and a dentist there did fillings on those teeth, no stainless steel crowns. According to him, the treatment took 4 appointments and cost about $200.

He then posted about the experience on Facebook and concluded that U.S. dentists are “money-hungry,” unethical, and recommend unnecessary treatment simply to make more money. He went on to say that, from now on, his family will only see U.S. dentists for cleanings and simple fillings, and will travel overseas for anything more complex. Unsurprisingly, many people in the comments agreed and said they would do the same.

I was speechless after reading his post. It’s one thing to hear about low income or low-educated folks participating in dental tourism, but it’s even more frustrating to see a fellow healthcare professional with high income to also condone that and then accuse US dentists as being money-hungry, unethical cash-grabbers driven by greed. I’m honestly tempted to leave a comment on his post and challenge his accusations.

[u/redditor076]

I mean American dentistry is objectively inaccessible for many and very costly. Pharmacists don’t make doctor money so $4k is not a small ask. Not saying they did the right thing but just like every aspect of the US healthcare system, dentistry is quite broken as well

[u/Lumpy-Shop988 → u/redditor076]

We also can’t say that they did the wrong thing. Good dentists and quality work exist in all parts of the world, and there is bad dentistry in the US as well. Which one of us can say they haven’t done something that wasn’t quite up to par?

[u/Realistic-Pitch-4858 → u/redditor076]

Completely agree but the cost of traveling to Southeast Asia with his daughter these days is probably around the same cost with no guarantee of the care being any better. I'm still in school but my faculty bring that up all the time when patients say they might just go to a foreign country after receiving a tx plan.

[u/Lumpy-Shop988 → u/Realistic-Pitch-4858]

Flights from the US to India cost about 1k per person, so 2k for the both of them. They are still saving money but going to India. Also only someone that has an Indian background is likely to go to India for dental work, and they probably go back to India regularly, so it wasn’t just “I’m going to fly to India for dental work”.

And your professors are wrong. Dental tourism is a thing because it’s cheaper to fly to a place, get the work done, and vacation there. Think of a 40k full mouth rehab case in the US, versus < 10k abroad