So my wife and I are in the Philippines visiting family. We both have not seen a dentist for more than 10 years. Back home, my dental insurance seems never enough to cover the care. I’d really like to know going into the appointment exactly how much it would cost and what would be covered. Perhaps this fear and my last experience of paying several hundred dollars for cleaning years back kept me away. I am glad we were lucky to have our friend Rob in our lives who take good care of our kid’s teeth in the US. Well, I was less concerned about seeing a dentist in the Philippines. 

We found someone in town that our family had been to and knew. After all, this, when I came back to the US I read this amazing article by theislandnow describing all the important and crucial factors about dental health that I missed earlier.

Overall, Melissa and I had a happy result. Both of us got an exam, thorough cleaning aka oral prophylaxis, and 5 teeth fill-ins between the two of us. we got a professional courtesy discount since Melissa was a fellow dentist. Even without the discount, it was a great value at less than $100. While there, a newfound dentist friend told us how many of her fellow graduates were working in Manila as was she at first. 

She decided to go back to serve the town where she grew up. In the waiting room, there was a Jan-Apr newsletter from the Philippine Dental Association PDA.ph and by chance, I read an article regarding why dental tourism has not taken off in the Philippines. The article talked about how standard price lists were not shared and how some Filipino dentists were taking advantage of dental tourism but not sharing best practices in promoting it and creating a larger trustworthy market for it in the Philippines. It’s a common problem all in all. What keeps problems like these from being solved is a lack of solidarity and instinct for what’s best for the many and not the few.

I highly recommend dental tourism in the Philippines. I myself had thoughts about how we could build information around what else you could do while you were there. another Uncle of ours is also here visiting and going to have some major bridge work done. In the US, he was quoted $16K. If the PDA article is accurate, the savings would be anywhere from 30 to 90 percent. It’s more than enough, in this case, to pay for the cost of the trip. I’ll write more on this later once we get the whole story on the work he had done and how much it ended up costing.