Have you been thinking about investing into a new set of dentures to replace missing or old damaged teeth? If you, like many, have put off important dental care for a long time due to cost and/or no insurance, you are probably more curious about price than anything else.
Like most medical procedures, costs can vary based on many factors. Some major factors in the cost of dentures are: where you live, how big the dental office is, any necessary extractions or additional procedures, the type of denture materials used/whether it's hand made to fit or mass produced by a 3rd party and what (if any) insurance you have.
Factors explained:
Where you live
The costs associated with medical treatment, and most other products and services, vary greatly by country, state and even city. Wealthy areas with high income statistics tend to charge more while while lower income areas charge less. Average salaries, home values and taxes play big roles in this factor.
How big is your dental office?
Large dental offices, with high overhead costs, tend to charge more than small dental practices. Large offices that are also franchises can charge less by using high volume, but usually with high volume comes low quality. Franchises are controlled by a corporate office that decides their products, services, procedures, prices and even what they can or cannot say to a patient. So, in most cases, small private practices can offer lower prices and higher quality products to compete with their much larger competitor's overwhelming advertising budgets.
Extractions
In order to make room for a full set of dentures, most patients need to have their remaining teeth removed first. Extractions can be a fairly simple and quick process, under ideal circumstances of course. When a patient is looking to fully replace all of their teeth, its usually because the teeth that they do have left are not in very good condition and don't always just come out nicely. A simple extraction can sometimes cost under a couple hundred dollars. A surgical extraction is much different and cost significantly more for a single tooth, depending on the seriousness of the situation.
Denture material
Here is the perfect example of how you get what you pay for. Superior materials not only cost more to obtain, but are harder to work with and require many more steps in the process of producing the denture and many more hours of hands on work by a professional dental lab technician. Low grade dentures could be made by pretty much anyone because they use cheap acrylic and mass produced sets of pre-assembled plastic teeth in a single shade of color. This means that everyone gets the same smile whether it fits them right or not. This is obviously better than having no teeth at all, but they will never fit or look right and wont last more than a year before breaking. Low grade dentures should be for temporary use only and should not be used for long periods of time as they can have adverse effects on your bone structure. As you can see from the images above, the premium denture on the right is a one of a kind, hand made, unique work of art and should be valued as such. This is literally the difference between a plastic dollar store decoration, mass produced in china and a statue hand carved from marble.
Interim Dentures (Healing Denture)
Interim dentures cost the least amount and are only a TEMPORARY solution for tooth loss. These dentures are most often used as a healing denture and should not be kept as a final product. This allows patients to go home with teeth in their mouth right after surgery. Once they are healed, a final denture can be fitted.
These dentures are usually cold-cured, meaning the acrylic used does not need to be heated in order to be cured, reducing the time required to make the denture. In comparison, mid-range and premium dentures have heat cured acrylic bases that are stronger and more durable.
Basic dentures use prefabricated plastic teeth that look artificial and the denture usually has no warranty and will not last as long as a more expensive model.
Mid-Ranged Final Dentures
Mid-range dentures are more personalized and will include much more natural looking teeth and are more durable than basic dentures.
Premium Final Dentures
These dentures will use the highest quality individual teeth as well as top-quality acrylics to replicate gum tissue.
The technician making the denture will spend much more time ensuring the acrylic baseplate accurately represents the shape of the gums and teeth are positioned to create an individual and aesthetically pleasing appearance. This involves hand tooling every single little detail the same as a professional sculptor and artist would.
Click or call 239-234-5284 to set up schedule your free denture or implant consultation at Naples Dental and Implant Center.
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