This was a story posted that we found about one persons dental tourism experience in Costa Rica. We enjoy sharing them when we find them. It was written anonymously in reply to a bloggers question regarding seeking treatment in Costa Rica.

I got some dental work done in CR in June, and I have plans to go back for more. If you are looking for a dentist that caters to tourists (they speak English and many are American educated) a root canal will cost you about $300 (I think) and a crown is about $550. Keep in mind the $550 crown is the top quality one that I can’t afford in the states. I used Dr Mario Garita. I didn’t get a root canal, so I’m trying to remember the price, or maybe I didn’t get that quoted? Don’t take my word for it, but my extraction was $30, my cleaning and xrays was $50 and my crown was $550. It’s a first class operation. I’m going back to get my old crowns replaced with the good crowns and get veneers on the fronts. I highly recommend them.

The crown fee is about 1/3 the price of many US dentists, the extraction about 1/5 the price. So why not dental vacation to Costa Rica?

Dental Vacation Reviews

One of the necessities for any dental vacation are your x-rays. The language of x-rays is universal. Dentists around the world are taught how to read dental x-rays. The reading is not in a language but in the nuances of the picture. Being able to tell which gray areas on the x-ray are healthy and which are possible dental decay or abcess is what each dental student learns on their progression towards becoming a doctor.
As such they are easily transfered between dentists and do not need a written translation. Thus no matter if you are a dentist in the US or Thailand you will be able to diagnose from a x-ray put in front of you. Since most x-rays are now in a digital format they can easlily be sent to any computer around the world.
The dentist you choose in another country will be able to give you a recommendation of treatment from those x-rays and from that a price quote. One thing to keep in mind though is that x-rays are only one diagnostic tool for dentists to use. It is also important for dentists to do a visual exam to get a more complete picture of ones’ dental health. But having those x-rays is an important first step for you experince in dental tourism.

Dental Vacation Reviews

There have been many reports on the great growth rate for medical and dental tourism. A report recently came out by Deloitte that not even this industry was beyond the reach of the global recession.
In an update of the study released late last year, Deloitte concluded that the recession had caused the number of people traveling outside the United States for medical and dental care to drop from 750,000 in 2007 to 540,000 in 2008, before rebounding to 648,000 last year. The strengthening economy, Deloitte forecast, will support 35 percent annual growth rates, which would mean an estimated 878,000 medical tourists from the United States this year, nearly 1.3 million in 2011, and more than 1.6 million in 2012. Still, these forecasts are sharply lower than Deloitte’s bullish forecast in the earlier report. Then, it had predicted 100 percent growth rates and 6 million Americans traveling outside the United States for medical care in 2010. Research from McKinsey & Co. places the numbers at roughly an eighth of Deloitte’s estimates, but Keckley says the big difference is that Deloitte includes out-patient procedures in its figures and McKinsey does not.
No matter what the numbers are if you need dental care and cannot complete it due to costs you should consider a dental vacation to take care of the health of your teeth and take a trip to a fantastic country like Costa Rica. You can even come home with money in your pocket compared to what you would have spent in the US.

Dental Vacation Reviews