Who doesn't love their annual dental check-up?

AP via AAP/Ginnette Riquelme

A survey of more than 2700 Australians has estimated that 3.5 million people haven’t been to the dentist in more than four years.

While the ‘fear factor’ is no doubt a major component, the Ipsos Social Research Institute also estimated that two million Australians haven’t gone to the dentist in the past two years because they couldn’t afford it.

Even people with private health insurance partly covering dental work couldn’t afford the out-of-pocket expenses.

For the most part, dental treatment is not covered by the government under Medicare.

Dentists are able to set their own fees, with prices for dental services varying from clinic to clinic.

Adding to the confusion for many patients is the apparent lack of consistency between dentists. A set of choppers pronounced healthy by one practitioner can be declared full of holes by another.

And when patients learn the cost of getting those holes filled, they may need an extra dose of anaesthetic in the hip pocket.

So is it time for dental fees to be covered by Medicare?

The move would remove much of the need to shop around for affordable treatment, and avoid the feeling that the dental industry has us over a barrel if we ever want to see the end of that nagging toothache.

The extra costs imposed on the health budget could even be outweighed by the savings from not having to treat more serious diseases that can develop elsewhere in the body as a result of poor oral hygiene.

Then again, perhaps our reluctance to visit the dentist is just another symptom of our busy lifestyles.

Yeah, that’s it. Our busy lifestyles.

And nothing whatsoever to do with the spine-tingling whizzz of metal on bone.