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Dentist quoted me $3,400 for a crown on a tooth that another office said just needed a filling
Back in March I cracked a molar on a popcorn kernel and walked into the first office near my place in Boise. They took one x-ray, poked around for maybe 4 minutes, and handed me a $3,400 plan for a full crown plus a build up. Something felt off, so I got a second opinion two weeks later at a place my brother uses. That dentist pulled up the same x-ray on screen, zoomed in, and showed me the crack only went partway through. He did a filling for $240 and it has held up fine for 6 months now. The wild part was watching both offices point at the exact same spot on the exact same image and walk away with totally different answers. So how do you all figure out who is being straight with you, do you just always get the second quote or is there a way to read the x-ray yourself?
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victor_jenkins18h ago
@bennett.laura nailed it. Second opinion should be the norm, but you can go one step more and just ask the first office to print or email you the x-ray before you commit to anything. That image belongs to you, not them, and any dentist who gets weird about handing it over is telling you something. Once you have it in hand, the second guy can pull it up next to his own read and you are comparing apples to apples instead of trusting two different stories.
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bennett.laura18h ago
Second opinion should just be the norm for anything over a few hundred bucks. Same x-ray, two totally different plans, that tells you everything about how some offices work. A dentist who shows you the screen and explains why it's just a filling is worth keeping. Mine does the same thing and it's why I drive past three other offices to get there.
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