VA Dental versus Private Dental

[Okemos_Veteran74]

Does anyone have an opinion one way or another on which is better VA or private dental service?

I'm not talkin about root canals or any expensive surgery or anything like that. I mainly go for X-rays and having my teeth cleaned every 6 months. What I notice any difference between a private dentist office and the VA?

 

[Oceanbound]

No you would not notice any difference in between the two. Silver is silver is silver. Now the subjective part is the person that is looking into your mouth.

[broncovet]

This is an individual question and cant be answered generally.  

In other words, each time you go to the dentist, you can get a variety of levels of expertise in the dentist in both VA and private dentistry.  

There are competent and incompetent dentists in private and va practice.  

Unfortunately, high quality dentists dont often like to work for VA because they are likely to make less money than private practice.  

So, VA often can not attract top quality dentists and physicians.  Its a problem that needs to be solved by congress.  

VA wages "top out" about 175k per year.  A great physician or dentist can often double that in private practice.  

Sometimes VA will offer a "bonus" of 10k or 20k per year, to make up part of that difference.  

It isnt always about "greed" on the part of the physician/dentist, either.  Often physicians have 500,000 to 1 million or more in student loans to get through medical school.  Student loan payments can be 10,000 per month or more for doctors.  So, if you subtract what the doc has to pay in student loans (say 120k per year), then this leaves just about 55k per year for the doc to live on.  Would you want to have all that responsiblity, and education, and make (after student loans) less than what a gs9 rater makes?  Is that why you persisted through medical school to earn less than a paper pusher???  

The wages of physicians/dentists needs to be "kept in line" with private industry, and those numbers are inflated because of the exceptionally high cost of education.  

The trouble is, if they raised the pay of doctors, then those VA exec paper pushers, who dont deserve 175 k per year they are making, will find a way to take advantage and collect the money for themselves, because VA has corrupt executives who "watch each others backs".  

Great doctors and dentists deserve 350 k per year, but lousy VA executives deserve to be fired.  

[Buck52]

I think it depends on the VA Dentist & if the equip is updated.

I use the Dallas VA Dental Clinic  its fairly big they have over 40 cubicles for each of the the dentist and speciality clinics for special dental care surgery or extractions& Partials/Denture specialist ect,,,ect,,,

 & Up dated Dental Equip of all Kinds.

The Dallas Dental VA Clinic Is top rated as for as the modern Equip they have, its modern and clean and everything in a Private Dental Office uses and I mean if that private Dental is expensive  the Dallas VA Clinic I would compare them in the same way   but like I said it really depends on the Dentist that works on you.

I found in my experience with using the VA Dentist(The Dentist him/her self  is what makes the difference.

Some but Not All dentist will work at the VA  very long, However most dentist starting out wants the experience before they  go open up their own practice.

We can't blame them for that. 

I have no Ideal how much their VA INCOME IS and I really don't care.

Edited June 29, 2018 by Buck52

[Okemos_Veteran74]

thank you all for the responses.

 

[seminoles]

My Va dentist is one of my favorite specialty clinics.  He is the only dentist at our location and is very busy but always takes his  time and gives me outstanding care. I have been sent to the large VA to have dental implants and cannot say how great both the oral surgeon and the prosthodontist were.  I still have a family dentist for emergencies and extra cleanings.  My local va dentist also sends me out for fee basis  treatment for my severe tmj and a few other things as needed.  If I get a cleaning I make sure it is only with the hygenist on staff and not the damn students, they are rough as hell and rude as well.  I complained to the college about 2 of them they were so awful.