re: Cost of dental deep cleaning

It was invented by dentists who, rightfully, feel they should be reimbursed for TIME. It takes much longer to clean a sewer-mouth than it does the average joe, and often requires anesthesia.

The problem as per usual, comes in with insurance reimbursement. There needs to be some way to quantify the necessity of the deep cleaning for approval by dental insurance. The ADA outlines these conditions that must be met, and they make sense. They are objective but not often measurable by data submitted on a claim. Therefore, in many shady offices, subjective, forced, or even falsified data is sent in on the claim for approval, the insurance approves it, and the patient thinks “oh it must be necessary”