Dental Implant Tourism
In the UK and around the world patients are increasingly traveling overseas to visit the dentist. They’re heading to places like Hungary and other Eastern European countries, where brass plaques and molar-shared signs bearing easy to grasp names like “Eurodent” and “Happy Dent” line central streets. In the town of Mosonmagyarovar (population 33,000) there are over 150 dentists. But to save thousands of dollars on dental implants, many Western Europeans are finding it worth the trip.
The reason for the lost prices is because labor is so much more inexpensive. In Germany or the UK, most of the cost of being a dentist is paying lab technicians. In Hungary, the greatest cost is materials — and that’s even if they pay their staff at better than average wages.
Total cost, for example, of eight crowns in the Washington, DC area would come to around $11,000. In Hungary, the cost could be a little as $3,000.
And while the quality may or may not be the same, there is definitely a concern about followup treatment if something goes wrong. “My concerns are not for the quality of dentistry received…but for the patients when it comes to long-term follow-up and possible complications,” says Matt Messina of the American Dental Association.