The manufacturing cost of a dental implant is less than 50 dollar, however dental implants cost on average 900 dollars, and in reality you will need to pay about 2500 US dollars to replace a lost tooth.
How is that ?
Dentists are not scamming their patients but they have such high rates because they have to pay assistants, nurses, clinic, taxes, insurance and that increases the bill.
Thanks to an article from Newdentaire.be, which we translated an summarize here, you will understand the price of dental implants.
How much does a dental implant really cost?
For the replacement of a tooth, nothing beats a dental implant: this Titanium screw implanted in the jaw on which crown is placed.
The implant surgery is just one of the many steps you need to go through:
• You will start with a panoramic X-ray and a dental scanner to find out if your jawbone can accommodate the implant (about 300 dollars).
• To prepare the surgery, teeth are scaled in order to avoid infections (150 dollars on average).
• One every three person will need a bone graft to add bone before placing the implant (about 1500 dollar).
• Then, the implant is 900 dollars on average.
• Finally, the crown is the only part you really see once the work is done. A crown is easily paid 700 dollars.
The total amount exceeds 2000 dollar in most cases for one single tooth.
Why is the price so high?
500 USD of material for a 2500 dollar implant:
By visiting a dental salon, we discovered the true price that dentists pay for implants, crowns and the material used to add bone.
• An implant costs about 120 USD (Manufacturing cost is about 50 but that is purely the manufacturing cost, it does not include the other costs such as advertising, communication and profit).
• In a dental crown there is less than 100 dollar of material (however the technologies used are very expensive: CNC machining, 3D scanner, 3D printer)
• The artificial bone is worth about 200 dollars.
Does your dentist make a 2000 dollar profit?
Actually no, it takes a huge amount of work to replace a tooth by a dental implant. People who have already been through this know that it takes between 5 and 10 appointments at the dentist to rebuild a tooth.
The dentist must also pay the rent for his workspace, his professional insurance and possibly a secretary.
In addition, the prosthetist must invest in many very precise machines to perfectly achieve each tooth. It’s a tailor-made job with high precision. Imagine that your new tooth has to adapt to both the implant, but also the neighboring teeth and the opposite one.
Finally, there is the state’s share.
The dentist and the prosthetist share what is left, but given the number of hours of work and the investments it represents, it is far from the highest paid work in the world.
Is Dental tourism a scam?
The analysis of the price of a dental implant shows that the price depends much more on labor and taxes than on the initial cost of the necessary equipment and materials.
That explains how dentists in some countries in Eastern Europe manage to lower the price of dental implants.
The case of dental clinics in Romania
As an example we will now compare 2 European countries such as France and Romania because they are about 2 hours apart by plane and they are both in the EU. In France, the full cost of a dental implant is about 2000€ whereas the same implant only costs 1150€ in Romania.
In Romania, corporate profits tax is 16%, which is half of what a French dentist pays. VAT is 19% instead of 21%.
In terms of manpower: the average salary in Romania in 2018 is € 573, about 4 times less than in France.
The rent of a commercial space is also half price, compared to France, without counting the big cities like Paris or Lyon where the rents are overpriced.
If we do the same calculation for a dental implant in Romania we get:
• The equipment is always at the same price because a good dentist or oral surgeon gets his material from major international brands : about 300 €.
• The operation of the clinic costs only 200 €.
• Labor costs only 250 €.
• Taxes are worth 400 €.
It is therefore a total of 1150 € for a dental implant in Romania against 2000 € in France. That is a potential saving of more than 40% for this dental treatment.