Visualizing Healthcare Costs in a New Way

Did you know the average cost of a dental cleaning (with no insurance) is between $75-200 depending on the area of the country in which this cleaning is done? Did you also know that it is recommended to get your teeth cleaned by a dental professional twice per year? How about this… Did you know that if by the age of 65 you still have all of your permanent teeth, your chances of living into your 90’s are increased greatly?

So, if we take the median price of the aforementioned range, for $275 per year you can help increase the number of years you’ll have on this earth. Now, I can think of a number of things that we blow $275 per year on. And most of these things definitely don’t promote health and wellness in our lives. If anything, they add to the long term deterioration of our bodies and livelihood. Yet, I so often hear how the dentist is “too expensive” or “I don’t have dental insurance”. We dish out so many excuses for why we don’t have regular dental visits. Quite frankly, they hold zero weight when you actually look at the numbers and see how inexpensive high quality dental care really is (especially in regards to the added long term health of our lives).

Did you know the average price of a cup of coffee is $2.99? And if you bought this cup of coffee for 13 full weeks out of the entire year, you’d have spent $275 on cups of coffee? And yet, I’ve never heard anyone say how expensive coffee is. You see, when something is “cheap” it gets bought over and over and over and over again. And before you know it, you’ve spent an ungodly amount of money on the very thing you thought was “cheap”. Instead, you could have spent that same money on something that is proven to extend life as we know it.

My argument is to stop making excuses regarding dental hygiene. Brushing and flossing twice per day is not enough to prevent gum disease, cavities, extractions, etc. This is a great start to having great hygiene, but in order to put yourself in the best position possible to have long term high quality oral hygiene, you need to have your teeth cleaned by a professional twice per year. And considering how much Americans spend on coffee each year, the cost to get that coffee stain off your teeth is inexpensive.