Is Dentistry a standardized commodity?

Dentistry certainly is a commodity. People "purchase" fillings, cleanings, night guards, whitening gel, etc., from their dentist. After seeing their dentist, most times patients have something tangible to show for it (a clean mouth, a filling, whitening, root planning). As a rule, dentistry is a commodity that is not terribly standardized. No two dentists perform dentistry the same way, so "purchasing"  it is quite different than purchasing a standard manufactured product.

Let's take the example of a simple acrylic night guard used to protect the teeth from grinding forces. There are many different types of guards and many dental laboratories that make them. In reality, as some patients have pointed out to me, sometimes angrily, when told of the cost, "It's just a piece of plastic." Now let me explain why night guards can be expensive in some practices and less so in others.

Some dentists spend very little time adjusting night guards when inserting them, while others spend considerable time. How a night guard is made and adjusted will affect a patient's ability to wear it comfortably with proper function. Although a night guard's price does not give definite information about its quality, there is a tendency for it to reflect the care and time spent by a dentist in its fabrication and fitting.

Dentistry essentially is a service that people purchase from their dentist. As with other consumer products, fees for dentistry can vary from practice to practice and can be related to, among other things, a practice's location, its busyness, and also can reflect the time spent with each patient's treatment.  Most dentists do schedule a certain amount of time for performing each type of procedure. For the most part, lower dental fees encourage dentists to perform their procedures more rapidly. Sometimes this can reflect a dentist's greater efficiency but other times it can mean that less care is taken to ensure that a highly predictable quality level is achieved. Although most dental fillings and/or devices do not last forever, they should be designed to function well for a good number of years in a patient's mouth regardless of a dentist's fee. 

 About the author: Lawrence Spindel DDS is a dentist who has maintained  a general and cosmetic dental practice in New York City, for over thirty years .