As in the UK, dental treatment in France is quite (very!) expensive. And that’s if you can get it because when I needed to find a dentist a year or so ago, every one I tried said that they were full up and couldn’t take on any more patients. Luckily for me I had a small job done by a dentist in Montignac not long after I came here and when I phoned them they found that I was still on their list and could do the work I needed to have done.<\/p>\n
Fast forward another year or so and I was experiencing some more problems. Work that I’d had done in the UK years ago, before I came to France, in some cases getting on for around 20 years, was beginning to fail and I needed some more major work, starting with a root extraction. Surprisingly this was done in the dental hospital at Brive on the French health service and didn’t cost me a bean and afterwards I was supposed to return to my own dentist for other work followed by a possible implant.<\/p>\n
I put that off because I was in the middle of my house build, only doing so at the end of April of this year by which time even more had gone wrong and I was suffering discomfort both biting and chewing. I therefore took the decision to have a major dental overhaul done as hopefully it will be the last major work that I’ll need in my lifetime, and work started at the beginning of May.<\/p>\n
So far it has cost me 2080\u20ac to have three crowns and a bridge reinstated, including replacing pegs in the gums and the bridge forming an extended crown over an existing supporting tooth and one of the reinstated roots. This is the gross cost and some of that will be reimbursed under the French health scheme as I do not have dental insurance which, if I’d taken it out when I got to France, would have cost me over the years many more times than what I’ve paid out for the treatment that I’ve incurred.<\/p>\n
I’m not quite sure of the amount that I will recover. So far I appear to have received 324\u20ac and I’m not sure because some of that may relate to prior health costs, although I don’t know what they might have been. So to date the refund amounts to just over 14% of my total outlay and there could (should) be more to come. Now we come to the interesting bit. I told my dentist that I wanted implant surgery to fill the most significant gap that remains and I was under the impression that he could do it. But apparently not. ‘Implantologie’ is a service that only specially qualified dentists can perform and he wanted to send me off to a colleague of his with a surgery just south of Limoges.<\/p>\n
That’s about 1 1\/2 hours drive away but I went anyway for a ‘devis’ (estimate) even though I’d found that there are several other ‘implantologues’ in my surrounding area. I suspected that the price would be on the high side and I wasn’t disappointed. I started off paying 100\u20ac for a panoramic x-ray scan after which I was told what was being quoted for. This was for two implants, leaving a gap between them, and a bridge between the two implants over the whole space. For this the total amount quoted was 3880\u20ac. And the final rub was that none of this, nor the cost of the panoramic scan, would be reimbursable.<\/p>\n
So that made me think. My friend Wim suggested that if I wanted the work to be done I might consider going to somewhere like Roumania where it would be much cheaper. In fact when I began searching on the internet I found that the preferred destination coming from France, and possibly also the UK, is Turkey and it didn’t take me long to find that there are lots of clinics, mainly it would appear in Istanbul and the holiday destination of Antalya.<\/p>\n
I obtained a quote from a clinic in Antalya but I found that although it might be a good destination for someone who wants to combine dental treatment with a summer holiday, it probably wouldn’t be the best place in the winter when I want to go. I also found that at that time of year flights from Bordeaux, where I want to fly from, are fewer and more expensive, so I switched my search just to Istanbul.<\/p>\n
One good thing I found was that almost all of the clinics that I was interested in had a Whatsapp account that made communication very quick and easy. They started off in French (I have a French mobile) but switched to English when I told them it was my preferred language, and the clinic I eventually chose was even prepared to exchange messages and provide me with a detailed quote at 10.00 pm French time, or midnight in Turkey.<\/p>\n
All of the clinics explained that implants involve a two-stage process. The first stage only needs 2 days during which the implants are inserted and then you have to allow anything from two to six months for the gums to fully heal before the the crowns and\/or bridges are attached. This means that two trips will be needed to Turkey for the work to be completed involving two round-trip flights and two hotel stays, the second of which being for up to a week.<\/p>\n
The task is therefore to select a clinic and then search for suitable flights, preferably with low-cost airlines, to get you to Istanbul and back at the time of your choosing. That’s not as easy as it sounds because using skyscanner.com, my booking engine of choice, changing flights by a day can result in the fare almost doubling, or more, and flight times changing dramatically, from 6 or 7 hours to over a day.<\/p>\n
And there’s a further complication. All (nearly) of the low-cost airlines are now playing games with baggage allowances. A stay of up to a week for me only requires carry-on cabin baggage and some of the airlines – Pegasus and Wizz Air being two notable culprits – levy a hefty charge on top of what look like very low fares if you actually want to carry on anything larger than a lady’s small handbag. I therefore immediately rule them out.<\/p>\n
So how did I do? I think pretty well. The majority of the clinics that I checked out offered an ‘all-in, dental tourism’ type service involving transfers to and from the airport, your hotel and their clinic and also tie-ins with selected hotels. Unsurprisingly, these tended to be at the upper end of the price bracket although some were cheaper in the mid-range or slightly lower.<\/p>\n
It appears that I happened upon a clinic that did not class itself as offering dental tourism. It did indeed offer a full range of services, which I won’t go into but including facial surgery and full mouth implants, and the price they quoted me for the same treatment as all the others was extremely reasonable – in fact the cheapest of all that I received.<\/p>\n
On the other hand their facilities looked to be impeccable and when I queried this, saying that top-class facilities and low prices don’t usually go together and I needed to be reassured that what I saw when I arrived needed to be the same as what they showed on their web site, they explained that their clinic is owned by the principal, has no shareholders who need dividend pay-outs and they just concentrate on providing an impeccable service.<\/p>\n
The way I look at it is no matter what price is being quoted, what’s on offer can be a bit ‘scammy’ and the impeccably modern facilities shown on their web site can turn out to be a dingy back room in a poor part of town. Like anything else you buy, it’s ‘caveat emptor’ and all you can do is weigh up all the evidence before making your final decision. I liked what I’d been told, how I’d been treated and the street view images I’d got from Google Earth so at the end of the day I decided to go with them. And the clinic’s cost, for the same treatment that I’d been quoted 3880\u20ac for in France? The princely sum of 1020\u20ac, just over a quarter of the price, leaving lots of room for air fares and hotel costs.<\/p>\n
Turning to the air fare, I wanted to go initially to Turkey towards the end of October or maybe the beginning of November and after trawling through dozens (literally) of flights I was delighted to happen upon a direct Turkish Airlines flight from Bordeaux to Istanbul within my desired time band for only 246\u20ac return. I was really pleased because the flight did not involve a stop-over and transfer en-route and Turkish are one of the good guys who still offer a decent cabin bag allowance – up to 55 x 40 x 23 cm and 8kg. Good for them!<\/p>\n
And now what about a hotel? OK, this is a bit sketchy I have to admit, as I’ve been told by a friend who’s a seasoned traveller and has booked hotels in Istanbul. On the first night I will arrive at the hotel well after midnight and when not in the clinic, I intend to be out exploring Istanbul as this will be my first visit there. So I will only require anything more than a bed for one night, which is not much of a risk to take.<\/p>\n
So I’ve ended up booking into what claims to be a 3* hotel not far from the clinic for two nights and with this amount of lead-time (I’ve paid for the room already) the cost will only be 38\u20ac!! I wanted a hotel that provided breakfast with the room and I’ve since found that although this one does, it’s at a sister hotel a short distance away and I must admit that if I’d noticed that before booking it would probably have swayed my decision.<\/p>\n
So, so far we have clinic 1020\u20ac, air fare 246\u20ac and hotel 38\u20ac, but this is only for stage 1 of the treatment. The clinic has said that at this stage they can’t tell me when I will need to return for stage 2 as that will depend on what they see when stage 1 has been completed. However, I think it’s reasonable to assume that it will be some time in early March 2025 and on that basis the air fare and the hotel cost can be estimated.<\/p>\n
I’ve found that at that time a return flight from Bordeaux with Air France\/KLM (again, good baggage allowance) could be booked today for 275\u20ac and a 6 night hotel stay for something like 216\u20ac and with those figures it’s now possible to compare treatment in France with treatment in Turkey.<\/p>\n
Treatment France ………………….3880\u20ac<\/p>\n
Treatment Turkey ………………..1020\u20ac
\nAir fare stage 1 treatment ……..246\u20ac
\nHotel stage 1 treatment …………38\u20ac
\nAir fare stage 2 treatment ……..275\u20ac
\nHotel stage 2 treatment ………..216\u20ac
\nTOTAL TURKEY ………………………1795\u20ac<\/p>\n
So there you have it. I’ve already booked for stage 1 of my treatment in Istanbul in the first week of November and anticipate returning for stage 2 in early March of next year. This just happens to coincide with the time I usually go off to Egypt for a bit of winter sun so who knows, as it’ll be slightly later I might also get a little bit of a sunshine break in Turkey next year. But in any event, I’ll keep everyone posted on how it all works out \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
A quick addendum to the above.<\/strong> All of the Turkish clinics said they’d like a copy of my panoramic x-ray and the French clinic that charged me 100\u20ac said they’d send me one on DVD to forward. However, the Turkish clinics also all asked for multi-photos – front, each side, mouth open, top, bottom – and in a case like mine that’s relatively straightforward they can work and quote from those. After that the Turkish treatment is all-in, including another panoramic scan etc, everything required to complete the treatment. Can’t argue with that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As in the UK, dental treatment in France is quite (very!) expensive. And that’s if you can get it because when I needed to find a dentist a year or so ago, every one I tried said that they were full up and couldn’t take on any more patients. Luckily for me I had a … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22990"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23018,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22990\/revisions\/23018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}