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Dentists pay lots of money for indemnity to be able to practice dentistry and be ‘insured’ should a patient encounter any difficulties and be able to prove that they have the negligence in their practice. 

One of the things that is very interesting about the survey of indemnity around the country is the massive variation in the cost of indemnity between Scotland, England and Northern Ireland.

Due to the mechanics of the legal system, practitioners in Northern Ireland can pay 10x (yes TEN TIMES) as much for indemnity for the same type of practice. I know this to be entirely true from friends of mine who practice in Northern Ireland.

England sits somewhere in between Scotland and Northern Ireland in the provision of indemnity. One of the areas which causes considerable contention is when practitioners decide they wish to bring sinus grafting into their clinical dental implant practice.

For a full-time practitioner in England providing sinus grafting indemnity is in the region of £10,000, £2,500 in Scotland and over £20,000 in Northern Ireland in some cases.

Just for clarity the Northern Ireland cases are not practitioners who have had significant or multiple touches with the law or compliance, it’s just the basic cost in Northern Ireland due to the nature of the system.

Clearly this causes a significant issue and a barrier into moving towards complex implant dentistry, but that is probably the point.

The point is that you’re not being indemnified for sinus grafting procedures, you’re being indemnified for complex, surgical, implant dentistry.

It opens up a whole world of possibility of cases that you can provide and therefore a world of possible remuneration that you can receive.

Time and time again practitioners will tell me that it’s ‘not worth sinus grafting’ because they add up how many sinus graft procedures they do based upon how much more it costs for this indemnity and cannot see the add on.

That is a false economy because all you’re doing is indemnifying yourself against much more complicated implant procedures and therefore you’re moving up the chain.

There is a wider discussion to be had here about the cost of indemnity in implant dentistry and it’s why we will go back time and time again to the 50 implants per year philosophy that we have at The Academy.

I continue to believe that the majority of implant providers in the UK place 15 implants or less, this is simply not sustainable in terms of indemnity, training, investment in logistics and kit, and time spent.

So, the same scenario applies. Pay for your implant indemnity and then place more than 50 implants per year, and when you’re trained, ready and feel confident increase your indemnity and move towards complex procedures. Do it ethically and honestly with support and curiosity. You’ll build yourself a practice that is worth having.

Once you get to that level the indemnity cost will be relevant.

Blog post number: 1591