If someone has just quoted you five figures for full-mouth work, the most valuable thing you can do next is get another opinion. Not to find a cheaper price, but to find out whether the plan is right.
Why full-mouth plans vary so much
There is genuine, legitimate disagreement among competent clinicians about how much treatment a given mouth needs. One dentist sees a case for full-arch implants; another sees teeth worth saving with periodontal treatment and a few crowns.
Both may be defensible. But they are enormously different in cost, in irreversibility and in what your mouth looks like in ten years.
The irreversibility test
Ask specifically: which teeth in this plan are being removed, and would any of them be savable under a different approach?
Extraction is the one decision you can never revisit. It deserves a second opinion more than any other part of the plan.
How to get a useful second opinion
Take your records with you: the CBCT file, photographs, and the written plan. Ask the second clinician to review the case without seeing the first quote, so their assessment is not anchored to it.
Then compare the diagnoses, not the prices. If both arrive at the same diagnosis by different routes, you can trust the diagnosis.
It is a normal thing to do
Nobody has surgery of this magnitude elsewhere in medicine without a second opinion. A dentist who is offended by the request is telling you something worth knowing.
A second opinion on a large case costs a consultation fee and occasionally saves both the money and the teeth. It is the cheapest insurance available in this entire process.
Questions about your own case? Send us your photos and we will walk you through the options.
