I was pissed off. A lot. Earlier this year, I was visiting Guadalajara, Mexico with my best friend from high school (whose name is also Mark). He’d just gotten back to our Airbnb apartment rental from a dentist appointment. He paid less than $300 for an extensive amount of dental work. I’m talking a tooth extraction, cavities, crowns, the works. Meanwhile, one month earlier, I paid something like $1,300 out of pocket for a crown and minor dental work in New York City. I have dental insurance, but still had to fork over all that cash. I was livid with envy.
I could have taken a vacation in Mexico, gotten all my work done there, and still come out ahead. I felt like I’d thrown my money down the toilet. But on my most recent visit, I changed my course. I’ve finally started seeing a dentist in Mexico. And I love it.
If you’re considering getting dental work or medical procedures done in a foreign country, of course, it’s important to research and assure that you’re dealing with experienced professionals who provide quality service. There are many medical tourism companies that can set up everything, even including hotel stays and tours, if you like. But those options can be pricier since you’re dealing with a third party. Luckily, I have a good friend in Guadalajara who is a doctor and is well connected with the local medical community, so he referred my friend my friend Mark and me to one of his colleagues, a dentist by the name of Dr. Vergara. Mark raved about the experience and the price. So this year, my husband Angel and I made appointments with the dentist as well.
When it came time for my appointment, I hopped in a reasonably priced Uber and headed toward downtown Guadalajara. Dr. Vergara’s office is a compact storefront space, and there’s no receptionist, no lengthy paperwork to fill out and no insurance information needed, since everything is out of pocket. This is streamlined service. In New York City, the fees I pay to the dentist are jacked up, partially to pay for the large support staff, administrative office and multiple dental assistants. In Guadalajara, the only person’s salary I’m helping to pay is the dentist. No wonder it’s so much cheaper.
His workspace was small and clean and I was especially impressed with the time he took to explain every procedure and every option, using photos and models. He even took before and after photos of my teeth and showed them to me, so that I could see what he was talking about. In all my years visiting a pricey Manhattan dentist, I have never been shown a single photograph of my teeth — only dramatic X-rays that aren’t always easy to decipher. Seeing color photos of my cavities, crowns and older fillings made it much easier to understand what needed to be done.
I should note that I speak Spanish, so our conversation was in Spanish (Dr. Vergara helped me out with any specific dental terms that I didn’t understand). But my friend Mark only speaks English, and he said that the doctor was also very good about using Google Translate, various visuals and written words to make sure that Mark understood all the procedures. Travelers who are skittish about the language issue, of course, can find fully bilingual dentists and doctors through medical tourism sites or simply by Googling.
By the time we were done with my appointment, I had a tooth cleaning and also had four fillings replaced. The total cost? About $125.
I’m not knocking the hard-working dentists in the United States, of course. It’s not their fault that the insurance and medical system is structured to charge massive fees, even to people with dental insurance. I’m just saying that now that I’ve experienced an alternative that provides quality dental care and also allows me to include a mini vacation in a place I love, it will be hard to go back to the old way of keeping my teeth healthy.
Even when you factor in the cost of airfare and two or three nights for a hotel or Airbnb, as well as the cost of dental procedures, it’s still cheaper to fly to Mexico from many destinations in the United States than to stay home and see your usual dentist. Plus, you get a Mexico vacation as part of the deal. Now that really makes me smile!