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Conversations with Rob (Part 3 - Remedial treatment)

You will be able to read part one and two of this little blog series about the conversations I had with Rob Oretti at one of the TCA Masterclasses a week or so ago.

In the third part of this I just want to touch briefly on remedial treatment and the experiences we have both had in this area of work, where we received referrals from dentists asking us to help them with problems, only to be encountered by the fact that they are staggered that they may have to pay for issues that they have been part of creating.

Rob showed some extraordinary pictures during his Masterclass of implants placed in the wrong position (I have had many of these) and then the patients turning up either on their own accord or on referral from general practitioners and asking for things to be corrected.

Some people are completely and utterly unaware of the fact that there is a blank cheque situation going on and they refer to us because they trust us and they know that we will not skin them, but they also know that this correction of remedial treatment cases are far more complex and more costly than treating the patient in the first instance.

Rob presented a case with the implants in the worst position that you could ever see. The dentist was well aware that the case had not gone well and that the patient was aggrieved at the outcome, and sought Rob’s help to correct the problem. However, when Rob presented the treatment plan, the dentist was shocked at the total fees (which included removal of the implants) and suggested that Rob should just provide better restorations on the mal-positioned implants and that was all that the dentist was willing to pay for. Such a compromised treatment plan was never going to work for the disgruntled patient and Rob had no other option but to refuse to treat the case on that basis.

Based on the previous two parts of this blog series of Peri-implant disease and the time bomb of that condition and the difficulty with run-off cover and patients securing retreatment problems for problems years after the dentist has retired. The market for remedial treatment will only increase.

For practitioners with experience in the complex level of the spectrum, this can be an interesting and quite fulfilling part of your work, but the management of your colleagues who have treated the patient in the first place, can be the hardest part of the process.

By Colin Campbell on 23/09/19 18:00