TCRN STAFF:
The price of dental care can be pretty costly. Even if you have insurance, you can be stuck paying thousands of dollars out of pocket, which is prompting many people to actually leave countries like USA and Canada to save money, in a expanding industry ” medical or dental tourism.”
Procedure that cast $6,000 in the US can cost $2,000 here in Costa Rica, with top notch facilities and in many cases with doctors with more training than their counter parts the USA.
The concept of dental tourism is growing with experts citing more cases of people traveling outside the country to get dental work done for much less, in locales like Thai Land, India and even better Costa Rica – which is in the USA/Canadian timezone, cultural cousins, and far more politically stable.
Recent statistics show more than 40% of U.S. residents don’t have dental insurance, and many who are actually covered complain about high out-of-pocket costs.
The American Dental Association defends those costs with a pledge of safety and high standards of training to get a license, all rigorously maintained by the government. But when you can walk into a clinic here in Costa Rica, receive the same and in many cases even better treatment, done by doctors with the highest training, standards and regulatory systems, and in a country where everything is cheaper across the board, it just makes sense to investigate this option.
Many of our dentists were actually trained in the U.S., but by operating outside the country so they can charge less due to less overhead – equipment, rent and labor costs are cheaper.
Some U.S. insurance companies will indeed pay for dental work performed out of the country.
To find out more on your medical and dental travel options contact The Costa Rica News.