What are your experiences with dentists in Taiwan? Went to one with 4.5 stars on Google with over 100 reviews to clean my teeth today. The dentist kept on talking for 20 minutes on how to clean my teeth and then spent another 10 minutes actually cleaning my teeth. He was even talking to me WHILE cleaning my teeth. So he talked nonstop for 30 minutes… I was going to ask about getting braces, but ended up just leaving afterwards because I couldn’t take it anymore.
There are plenty of dentists around - if you don’t like one, try another. I’ve never had them talking to me like you describe here, but there’s always been a language barrier.
Lots of other discussion if you use the search bar.
Massive thread dating from 2002 to March of this year:
hit or miss, whether they are talkative was never a problem, but if they give good advice is another…
ask for recommendations or go by trial and error.
Quite the exaggeration, IMO. I actually had a filling at a private dentist last night - it cost NT$150 with NHI. And a wisdom tooth removed a couple of weeks ago for the same price.
No NT$200,000 implant plan here. Maybe you need to be more assertive.
It’s hit and miss though. Some dentists are of course fine but a lot of dentists here try to upsell you. That’s why you see women in their thirties getting braces fitted.
The advantage of the Adventist hospital is that the dentists themselves aren’t going to profit from pushing you into expensive plans.
Yeah, and no way I’d actually sign up to a plan. I’m more a sort of, get the pliers doc, let’s pull that sucker.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Isn’t that one of the pricier places though, or is it fine with NHI? (I looked into going there for a complicated root canal thing before I had NHI, but it would have meant going through the IPCC and I wasn’t willing to be gouged.)
After that I went to one of the fancier/cosmetic-type places to see a pretty good specialist, but it was still quite cheap (NT$1600) even without NHI. I decided I didn’t want to pay >NT$20k for a 10-20% chance of saving the tooth, and they didn’t push anything. In the end, I just got it extracted at my local place (although it would apparently have been way cheaper at the fancy place for some odd reason).
None of the dentists I’ve seen were overly talkative.
My personal experience with the Adventist was not good. I went there to replace a broken filling (150 NT), the doc said that i grind my teeth and i should get a 30K bridge. I dont grind my teeth, and none of the other dentists i have been to ever suggested that.
Kaoshiung, big hospital north of Train Station. Don’t make me search the name. They’re dentistry department is the best.
I long neglected my wisdom teeth. The doctor said I almost certainly would have nerve damage. He was able to avoid major damage.
Daughter also got braces there. If you schedule something serious, PM me and I’ll try to get you names.
One drawback. It’s a medical school. They let the intern find and remove stitches.
I got on the bus to go home, halfway out of the city my tongue found a few more. I left the bus, went across the street and took a bus right back. They fixed the problem right away.
Except for one stich. I took care of that at a local dentist.
But besides the stitches incident the doctor and the hygienist for top notch.
One of the best, but also most expensive dentists in Taipei and Taiwan:
The reason many dentists do not spend a lot of time on dental cleaning is that the job of dental hygienist does not exist in Taiwan. So it actually has to be done by the dentist himself for legal reasons. But the above do a reasonable job
I had to do a crown with a dentist who spoke English. I was expecting a really expensive price, but it was ok for me, I think it was 16,000 or 23,000 total without NHI, don’t remember correctly.
He had a cool equipment that made a digital 3D model of the tooth in real time, I never seen it before. I think the name was Yang an dental clinic next to the 行天宮 temple.
I was terrified because my old filling broke and I read all the Taiwan dentist terror histories, but overall I had a really good experience.
