A NEWLY published price survey has revealed that the Republic is one of the most expensive countries in the world for a range of dental and medical treatments.
The Global Health and Dental Price Index, published by Avantis Health, shows that savings of up to 70 per cent can be made by seeking some elective treatments in other countries in western Europe.
The index, compiled in the first quarter of this year, compared the cost of treatment for a range of procedures including dental care, elective surgeries such as knee replacement, eye and cosmetic surgeries.
It reported that the average cost of a tooth extraction in the Republic was €90, making it the most expensive of 12 countries polled.
The next most expensive country was Portugal where an extraction costs €82.
The average cost in the UK was €75 while the cheapest country in Europe to get a tooth taken out was Hungary where the cost was €39. The price of a simple extraction in India was just €21.
An oral exam and consultation, which has an average price of €65 in the Republic, is commonly available for no cost in Spain while the price in Italy is €27.
The average cost of getting the treatment done privately in the UK was €55, Avantis said.
Crowns, dental implants, X-rays and wisdom-tooth extraction were also all more expensive in Ireland than in the vast majority of countries surveyed, although some of the treatments cost slightly more in the UK.
According to the index, a patient could knock more than half of the cost off cruciate-ligament repair by having it done in Germany as opposed to the Republic.
The average cost of the treatment in Ireland, Avantis Health said, was €5,514, while the cost in Germany was €2,700.
The cheapest place in the EU where the treatment is available was Lithuania where it costs just €1,652.
A full knee replacement, meanwhile, which costs €17,049 in Ireland, costs €11,400 in the UK and just €5,676 in Poland.
Launching the biannual initiative, Avantis Health director Orla Fahy said the index showed that Irish patients could “make significant savings on their health and dental care, by merely shopping around in Ireland with substantial savings possible if they are willing to travel abroad for treatment”.
The company, which specialises in healthcare treatment purchasing for self-pay business and personal customers, said the prices were average procedure costs as provided by hospitals and dentists, from various countries on a “self-pay” basis which is defined as a non-insured patient funding the treatment.
It accepted that considerations other than price had not been incorporated into this report.
