WHETHER you see a dentist in Bedok or Orchard Road, you will soon know how your bill compares with that charged by a government-run dental centre.
Starting tomorrow, information on price benchmarks for treatments such as wisdom tooth operations and root canals will go public on the Health Ministry's website. Patients can then make more informed choices about how much to pay for dental care.
The initiative follows the Health Ministry's move to make public the size of hospital bills - which triggered almost immediate price cuts at hospitals that were more expensive than others.
Besides pushing for greater cost transparency, the ministry has two other missions - to set up of a register of dental specialists to raise professional standards and to raise the number of dentists by recognising the degrees from 55 more American and Canadian dental schools.
The Health Ministry said the 4.68 million people here need another 653 dentists, based on a ratio of one dentist to every 2,500 people. This is a conservative projection, given the rise in demand for dental services.
Professor Patrick Tseng of the Health Ministry's Manpower Standards and Development Division said people were more aware of dental health and aesthetics, and had the money to pay for both.
On the move to put the cost of various dental treatments online, he said it would allay concerns over the wide differences in treatment prices. But he said that fees will still vary with the clinic's location, the dentist's experience and the materials used.
A check by The Straits Times found that a root canal can cost $400 at a heartland dental clinic and $1,500 at an Orchard Road one. A National University Hospital spokesman said a private patient at NUH would pay between $350 and $900 for a root canal.
Information like this would have been useful to Mr Jon Lee, 43, who cracked a tooth about a year ago. The $700 he paid for his root canal was well within NUH's cost range.
He said: 'It was expensive, but I would not say I was ripped off. A website benchmarking treatment costs would perhaps encourage me to shop around a little more.'
Prof Tseng said making the cost of dental treatment more transparent is all the more important because more than three quarters of dentists here are in the private sector.
Of the 1,422 dentists here, 1,219 are in active practice. Of these, 922, or 85 per cent, are in private practice.
On the specialist register of dentists, Prof Tseng said it will make dentists' areas of strength more transparent.
The Health Ministry also plans to require dentists to treat a minimum number of patients, or chalk up a minimum number of training hours or hours teaching their specialty to renew their licence.
Dentists in private practice welcomed the changes.
Dr Lim Swee Teck said: 'If patients are prepared mentally and if they are given the option to decide, bad feelings towards the practitioner or practice will be lessened.'
But Dr Thean Tsin Piao cautioned that benchmark fees only reflect what is being charged in the market; they do not tell dentists what to charge.
He also pointed out that benchmarked fees would mean little if the clinical standards delivered for a given treatment by two dentists are different.
On patients who are less price sensitive, he said: 'In a free market, some consumers would pay more for branded schools, watches, cars and clothes. Why not a dentist or a doctor?'
