The true cost of a dental implant (part 2)

Externalities in dental implantology

 

Commune cost efficiency analysis performed within the decision making process today in clinical dental practice do not consider the so called “external costs”.

What are external costs?

External costs occur within the production process of a good and are usually imposed on third parties (human society , nature, etc.). These costs are social costs and have to be added to the purchasing costs of a good.

Where do external costs come from?

The vast majority of dental implants available on the market are manufactured out of titanium alloy. Titanium is found to a number of different mineral deposits. Processing titanium is  very costly.

“The relatively high market value of titanium is mainly due to its processing, which sacrifices another expensive metal, magnesium”.[1] Manufacturing process is made using very high temperatures (high energy consumption) as well as involving further rare and difficult to manufacture chemicals (example: chlorine, which is very rare on earth). Due to its costly manufacturing process titanium is today priced 35 times more expensive than conventional iron manufacturing.

Dental implants are cut of titanium bars using expensive and sophisticated CNC machining technology generating titanium waste. A very demanding individual packing, sterilization and labeling protocol follows which after the utilization of the dental implant adds hard to recycle waste.

The manufacturing process of dental implants can be considered to generate very high external costs imposed upon nature and human society.

Only an ecological responsible implementation of dental implants within offered treatment solutions can justify the very high external costs.

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[1] Barksdale, Jelks (1968). "Titanium". In Clifford A. Hampel (editor). The Encyclopedia of the Chemical Elements. New York: Reinhold Book Corporation. pp. 732–738.