For cut-rate dental care, head to Mexico - Jul 2010
TIJUANA (CNNMoney.com) -- A good smile can be a pricey proposition in the U.S., where barely half the population has dental insurance and routine procedures can run up four-figure bills. Want a porcelain crown for a damaged tooth? That'll cost $945, on average. Or you can step across the U.S. border and cut your tab to $250. That's the going rate for a crown at DentiCenter, a small but growing chain of full-service dental centers lining the U.S. border along California, Arizona and Texas. DentiCenter's six outposts are located in Mexico, but
97% of its patients come from the U.S.
Americans are increasingly willing to head across the border in search of a deal. Paul Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions research group, estimates that dental tourism is increasing about 20% a year -- and
the typical consumer is a middle-income American with insurance.
To attract American clients, Eng set out to make his practice mirror their experience in the U.S. His office in Tijuana, just a few hundred yards from the San Ysidro border at the edge of San Diego, is
modern and immaculately clean, with nine bright, comfortable exam rooms. It looks and feels like a typical U.S. dental office -- except that the staff is Mexican and bilingual.
"I don't think this is going to end with the end of the recession," he says of the surge in dental tourism. "The cost of healthcare is becoming a major problem in every household. This is a trend, not a fad."
LINK
I know more than a few people personally that go to Mexico for all their dental work. People that have money and insurance, but refuse to pay the extortionist prices here in the US for the
exact same care you can get for pennies on the dollar in Mexico. Guadalajara has some of the finest medical facilities and care available as well. Just as good, if not better than here in the US.
Time for America to get its shit together and stop being so fucking greedy, or guess what? People will take their business to other parts of the world... like they've been doing for a long, long time now.