(Newswire.net — March 6, 2014) — Americans in need of dental implants have been looking overseas to get work through dental tourism, which has been a growing market for decades. In 2012, a report sent to the United States Congress titled ‘Dental Crisis in America’ from Senator Bernie Sanders noted that almost 130 million people in the country have no dental coverage. This low number of insurance holders and the sheer affordability of dental work in other nations are at the helm of the growth in the American dental tourism industry.
While many dental tourists head to countries like Mexico, Malaysia, Turkey and India to find the cheapest prices available to have their teeth worked on, the quality has been shown to not always be what was advertised. Often, a low-quality knockoff is implanted into the dental tourist’s mouth in lieu of a top-tier American product like they were promised. Sometimes it takes only months or a few short years for the cheap knockoff to break, chip or crack, causing the patient to have to undergo a painful procedure all over again.
That being the case, savvy dental tourists have begun visiting the United Kingdom for their toothy needs. As noted by implantsnottingham.co.uk, “Many US trained dental implant experts have relocated abroad in countries based in Europe and Americans may be swayed to have a holiday in Europe combined with cheaper dental implant treatment than what they would receive in their home states.” Even when traveling to a first-world nation like the UK, those costs are still shockingly cheaper than in the US.
Discussed in an article titled ‘Trends in the Dental Tourism Market in 2014’ the International Medical Travel Journal points out some differences in prices. For many dental services in the UK, costs can be less than half for the American counterpart. Dental veneers, which cost around $1,800 in the United States, have a much lower cost in the UK at around $870. Similarly, getting a dental crown in the US will set a patient back around $2,000 while a dental tourist in the UK will receive the exact same service for $1,000 -all while enjoying a vacation in a foreign country.
The demand for dental tourism is only looking to grow through 2014 and beyond, and much of this will be to the UK, which offers the same products and treatments at much lower prices.
Media Contact:
Michael Pearse
San Diego, California
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