At Martlesham Heath Dental Practice, fair pricing is an important part of our ethos. We want the fees that we charge our patients to reflect a fair price for our skills and experience – without compromising the quality of materials, our duty to the environment, or the respect we have for our staff and suppliers. Below we have set out what we will do to try and make this happen.

 

Making you aware of the fees

 

We want you to be fully aware of the treatment we are proposing, the reason why we are proposing it and of the fees that you will pay before treatment starts. We also want you to be aware of when your fees will be due, in most cases this will be at the end of each appointment.

 

To do this we will:

 

• Display a fee guide on our website and make sure this is available on reception.

• Discuss with you the treatment we think is necessary and the reasons why and provide information leaflets for further information about your treatment.

• Provide a treatment plan which will include estimated costs for each patient before treatment starts.

• Provide a new treatment plan with updated fees if the treatment needs to change for any reason.

 

Fee Rises

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We review our fees every year and based on our current costs and the current market conditions, we will decide whether to increase some or all our fees. If we raise our fees and you have a treatment plan that is less than 90 days old, the prices on it will be valid for 3 months from the date of the rise. Treatment plans that are older than 90 days will be subject to the new fees.

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Why do we have to raise fees?

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The two major factors we take into consideration when adjusting our fees are, our costs and the market conditions. Our costs are everything we need to pay for to run Martlesham Heath Dental Practice, there are all sorts of costs ranging from cleaning and insurance to energy. By far, our biggest of these are staff costs which include wages and continuous professional development, the materials we use and the laboratory costs.

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We want you to have confidence in our team and that we are providing the best possible service and treatment. To do this we need the best people working for us. We think it is only right to pay them a fair wage.

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The cost for materials and laboratories varies hugely. We could reduce our fees by using cheaper, materials that do not have biocompatible properties or find a cheaper laboratory, but we have found over the years that this is often a false economy. In the world of dental materials and laboratories it is almost universally true that you get what you pay for, if we used a cheaper filling material it will not look as nice or last as long and may not fit as well, look as natural or be as strong. Ultimately, you may end up paying more.

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Dental material costs also change based on the world market. Most of the items we use are manufactured in Europe, and any changes to the relationship between Britain and its trading partners will cause costs to fluctuate.

We consider all these factors when deciding if we should increase any Martlesham Heath Dental Practice fees.

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What exactly does Fair Pricing mean?

 

Fair pricing is more than just the outright value of our services, we also believe there are certain principles that we try to uphold.

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We want to build a relationship with our suppliers. At Martlesham Heath Dental Practice, we pride ourselves in using the best suppliers who have extensive research and development behind their products. This means that we can be confident in knowing that the products we are using are the best products in the best hands.

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Wherever possible, we believe in going locally to our suppliers so that we can not only support our area, but we can also build good relationships with our partners. We think by following these principles, we are giving our patients the best possible service at good value, whilst treating our staff and suppliers fairly. This is what we mean by fair pricing.

 

Why our prices say ‘from…’ and our treatment plans are estimates’.

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• It is hard to be completely accurate on our fee guide, for example for a white filling our guide will give a ‘from’ price. The reason for this can be explained with the following example: a small filling at the front of the mouth is easy to get to and does not use much material which will be cheaper. A big filling at the back of the mouth will take longer, it will be more difficult to get to and it will use more material, therefore the cost will be more.

 

• Sometimes there are treatments that will need to be carried out before we can even get to a filling, a good example of this is gum disease. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that gum disease has a considerable effect on your overall health, and we would always want to sort that out first. We also try to look at the reasons why you may be having the problems you are having e.g. if you need a filling is that signalling a problem with what you are eating? Perhaps if we can help you to fix that, we can stop you needing fillings. However, we will not know that until we see you.

 

• Even when we have seen you, your treatment plan will remain an estimate. We cannot guarantee that the treatment plan will not change once the treatment starts. However, we do promise that we will keep you informed at every step of any changes to your plan.