Friday, November 23, 2007

Going to the dentist

I just got back from the dentist. My third time in the chair since we've been in China.

My insurance from Intel covers dental up to about 100 USD per year. You don't actually pick a dentist, but a dental clinic. When I looked on the list of approved dental clinics, there was one called iMD located about 10 minutes walk from our apartment. The first visit I brought Sun-Ling with me, but since then I've been back twice by myself with no problems.

So on Tuesday of this week I called up iMD and requested for an appointment on Friday at 10AM with Dr Wang, the dentist I had on my second visit who speaks English, does a good job, and has a sense of humor. I reminded them that I have GBG insurance since for some unknown reason they need to have a GBG specialist in the office during my visit to process the paperwork. I found that out last visit. OK. I'm in.

So today, I arrived right at 10AM. They had my file ready, asked to make a copy of my insurance card and ID, and had me fill out the patient section of the insurance claim form. The usual kind of claim form with a teeth diagram, and lots questions about dependents, dates, policy numbers, etc.

Dr Wang goes by the English name of King Wang which is slightly humorous if you speak Chinese since wang means king. So he's King King. I told you he had a good sense of humor. Also, Elvis is called Mao Wang in Chinese which translates to Cat King which makes a lot of sense if you are old enough to remember 1950's hipster lingo.

I walked back to a bay, they don't have rooms, and sat in the chair. A smiling Dr Wang asked "How can I help you today?" "Please clean my teeth" I replied.

In China the dentist does all the work, while the assistant only adjusts suction, spray, etc. This clinic uses ultrasound to clean the teeth.

The cleaning, flossing, and polishing took about 30 minutes. King Wang reminded me to floss every day which I already do. I took my chart up to reception and paid the 19 RMB Co-pay (about 3 USD). Then I asked for a copy of my records, which are in Chinese. And I got them to put a copy of my panorex on my USB disc. See below. I was back home at 11.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOVELY picture Johnny!
Cathy

Anonymous said...

as i read on, i expected something extraordinary/climax: like Dr. King Wang pulled a wrong tooth... well, i was a bit disappointed that John got teeth cleaned and went home. that's it? Ah, but the picture, what can i say? that's the extraordinary. :)
PS, what's a POLICE number? and why does the dentist office need it? :)
--weiqing

john said...

Weiqing, you found a typo. Should be "policy number" NOT "police number". Sometimes the spell checker is no hlep. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Nice, but scary, teeth, John! :)
When will you two come back for a visit?
Mei

john said...

Thanks for all the comments....We will be back in Raleigh this summer. See you then!