Archive for December, 2008

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Can you trust your dentist?

Posted by robin in Non-Finanical Articles Thursday December 18, 2008 5:52 pm

Time methinks for some consumer activism here…

Do you trust your dentist?

These medical professionals maybe be bright and, after years of studious application, gained the right to wave a drill at our gnashers…but are they honest?

The thought recurs with me every time I visit my dentist, as I did this morning. In the profession, like all others, there are good ‘uns and there are bad ‘uns.

I was introduced early to the dentist as a kid and have been going pretty regularly since. But these days I ask myself why?

A dentist runs a business. The dentist is skilled we trust and often qualis are displayed to reassure us. But what of their more human traits? A business comes with cost pressures and people come with vices such as greed. He/she gets paid for work done. The more work done the more money comes in, the better our dentist lives.

So what? Well, this was my experience…

A South African dentist transplanted to west London once put the view inside my mouth up on a TV monitor - not pretty - and smoothly advised me I needed a stack of root canal work and a whole bunch of crowns.

How much for this comprehensive oral overhaul? £10,000! That’s £10,000..! Yes, ten bloody grand!

A lifetime’s diligent cleaning and flossing had come to this. I was, if you’ll pardon the pun, gobsmacked. 

Fortunately, I received sensible counsel at home and knocked on a neighbour’s door. He’s a dentist. I asked for an appointment and a second opinion.

A few days he gave me a check up. You need one filling he advised me. One filling…one filling. Ha!

I switched to my neighbour dentist. He’s non-invasive and that’s what I want from here on.

It’s not everyone’s calling to peer into the furthest recesses of people’s mouths, but they are decently rewarded for their service. However, were a dentist to be a little cavalier in his practice and prone to drilling first and asking questions later, few patients would be any the wiser as to the quality and necessity of the work. Meanwhile the dentist gets paid and few complain.

So think about it. If you suspect your dentist might put personal need before professional ethic, get yourself a second opinion.

As for the dentist who quoted me £10,000, the scuttlebut is there’s been a bust up at the surgery. Staff have left and gone elsewhere. 

Oh good.

 

A quarter of population “not in control” of their finances

Posted by robin in Financial Articles Tuesday December 16, 2008 1:25 pm

Rarely can a new year have been anticipated with such dread.

By all accounts, 2009 is going to be miserable for many.

Research findings from insurer Axa Group give an indication of how bad. It finds: 

  • 11.6m (a quarter of the UK adult population) are ”not in control of their finances” with 1.3m saying their personal finances ”are entirely out of control”
  • 6.1m have no savings left with 1.7m saying their savings have evaporated in the credit crunch
  • 3.8m can’t keep up with credit card bills
  • 1.02m have borrowed too much and can’t keep up mortgage payments.

Other research by Abbey finds that 4.6m Brits are now holding on to cash in the house now faith in banks is shot.

More than £5bn has been tucked into teapots, stuffed under mattresses or stashed in newly acquired safes. Somewhat self-servingly it points out the danger of this strategy…burglary rates tend to rise in the bad times.

So it boils down to a straight calculation. The relative probabilities of being mugged either by your bank or by your neighbourhood burglar. 

 In yet more research, National Savings & Investments says more than half of the population do not save regularly and more than a fifth save nothing at all.

 Now the tide’s gone out, that’s a lot of people swimming naked.

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