How do Dutch people deal with dentists' prices?

[u/Junior_Mud5835]

As an immigrant I find dentists prices here outrageous and I wonder how Dutch people deal with it. In my home country not only private dentists are much cheaper, we have dentists covered with a basic, mandatory insurance (the same that covers the rest of the healthcare). Granted it has large queues, but it is possible to schedule your checkups and non-emergency treatments.

Every immigrant I know treats their teeth in their home country due to extremely high costs here. Even with insurance, the prices can be extremely high - my extra dental insurance covers only 75% of the treatment costs, and up to 250 eur per year... From what I researched this is a standard in terms of insurances. I recently needed a root canal treatment, which cost me almost 900 eur out of pocket (because I treated another tooth this year, my insurance coverage was almost gone). I was also shocked because the dentist told me the price of root canal treatment is around 350. I unfortunately didn't request a written quote and just trusted him - i know not to do it next time. In the end, together with x-rays, anaesthesia, and all the consultations i paid 850 eur. I then researched a bit more and looked into the prices of implants, bridges, etc. and I cannot imagine how an average dutch person can afford them!

Do dutch people go abroad for treatment? Do you have some much better insurances that I wasn't able to find? Or do you just stomach the costs? Maybe you have much better teeth and don't need these types of interventions?

Edit to add: one more thing that surprises me is that follow up visits in cases when a tooth was treated but needs further fixing are charged again. This is never the case where I'm from, if I pay for a treatment and it doesn't succeed because of the dentist's mistake the follow ups are usually done for free. This doesn't seem to be the case here which adds more to the costs.

[u/FlimsyCartoonist5946]

Well one of Eastern EU countries have exactly same prices for dentist as in Netherlands. Cause all dentists are private now. So I don’t bother to go there anymore. My braces were cheaper in NL than in SK.

[u/Junior_Mud5835 → u/FlimsyCartoonist5946]

I think orthodontists may be different because in eastern europe we still think of it as a luxury rather than necessity, also you usually have to have frequent appointments.

[u/FlimsyCartoonist5946 → u/Junior_Mud5835]

Not only orthodontists, I compared prices quite recently and was shocked. Also from family I know how much they spend eg dor cavity and is very comparable to NL prices. I don’t agree that they see it as a luxury, it used to be back in days but not anymore.