''free'' dental service

[TeppoKroatialainen]

Moi,

So... more then a month ago I called Helsinki city dental care number and told them that I would like to see a dentist.

I told them its nothing urgent but I have something that should be dealt with, gave them my finnish ID number (FYI I have kela card) and they gave me an appointment for today morning in one what seemed like a private clinic.

I thought great, and I asked some finns whats the deal and they said, yhea don't worry public healthcare system buys this service from private sector.

And after the dentist was finnsih with the work she said ''ok, thats it you will get the receipt at your home address ", and I was like ''Whaaat receipt, I thought here I came here through Kela healthcare insurance'' - ''Yes that why this treatment will cost you only 70 euros and not 200'' - Kiitos

So ok, it is cheaper then I just walked in and pid the full price, but I had to wait for a month and the people from the Helsinki city dental care didn't bother to mentioned that.

So my questions are, if you wait for a private clinic for a month how long do you wait for a ''free'' one (i mean the one that is covered by kela or what ever)

Is this such a normal thing to pay something like this for any dentist so nobody bothered to mentioned it.

Aaaaand please don't start by explaining how much dentist cost in for example US, or something like that Kiitos

[wolf80]

Dental care is not completely free for adults, you still have to pay certain fees depending on what was done. It does not matter if you get treatment at a municipal facility or the municipality buys the service from the private sector. See here for example:
http://www.hel.fi/www/Helsinki/en/socia ... ntal/fees/

As a comparison what real private healthcare costs:
https://www.oral.fi/en/Services/Prices/

[Honest]

Moi,

- ''Yes that why this treatment will cost you only 70 euros and not 200'' - Kiitos



So my questions are, if you wait for a private clinic for a month how long do you wait for a ''free'' one (i mean the one that is covered by kela or what ever)

You have answered your question yourself in the post. For the discounted treatment (70 euros in this case) you needed to wait 1 month. You could get the treatment faster if you were willing to pay the full price (200 euros).

There is no completely free dental care.

And there is no free medical care as well in most of the cases. It's just discounted. (Though it becomes free after a certain level)

[TeppoKroatialainen]

Thanks for reply.

Well it seems like i was quite wrong I assumed that it would be genuinely free ( i mean paid by may taxes)

Thats why we say, the assumption is a mother of all @#$%

Ok so if you want to stick around the topic

Has there ever been a completely free dental care in Finland? I was apparently a bit spoiled with fees free dental care back home.

Do you know is there some extra heath insurance that i can take that would pay for some amount of dental services?

[wolf80]

So my questions are, if you wait for a private clinic for a month how long do you wait for a ''free'' one (i mean the one that is covered by kela or what ever)

you don't need to wait for month for private clinic, in lots of cases you can get appointment on the same day, tomorrow or whenever you are free.

Kela discount is not that much as you were informed, 70 euros for 200 euros bill. In most cases it is like 70 euros for 90-100 euros bill. Nowadays they have decreased a lot of medical/dental/health related discounts and reimburses.

Seems you didn't understand, the commune had bought the service from a private dental clinic. Which often means you have to wait longer than a private patient at the dental clinic. And of course you only have to pay the communal fees for dental treatment.

If you go to the dental clinic as a private patient you become some money back from KELA.

Both explained in the links I provided! It helps reading a post before answering nonsense!

[Upphew]

Has there ever been a completely free dental care in Finland? I was apparently a bit spoiled with fees free dental care back home.

Nah, it used to be even more expensive. Adults couldn't use public dentist until early 2000s. Before that every town and municipality could set an age limit after which you couldn't get you teeth looked at by them.

Do you know is there some extra heath insurance that i can take that would pay for some amount of dental services?

There sure are, but I'd guess they are aimed more at general healthcare than teeth only.