I like to find out in case of dental implant failure, what recourse do we have? Did anyone manage to get any full/ partial refund? In Malaysia, normally there aren’t any kinds of black and white to be signed when seeking any dental treatment. The doctor may put the fault on you that your body couldn't accept the implant well

As in my case, I did both dental implant and bone graft. After a period of 7-8 months, no bone was formed from the bone graft and the implant was protruding.
I did consult another specialist and he opined that the implant was failure on ground that first, no bone was formed, secondly the positioning of the implant was wrong.
My dentist advice is to redo the whole thing for me which I am kinda of reluctant (prefer refund by the way) for reasons being:
- he isn't an implant specialist after I found out this from another doctor (well, a lesson learned here). A lot of dentists in Malaysia claim they are specialists but in fact they are mere general practitioners. What they did was by just attending some courses on dental implant. There aren't any stringent regulations which guard this matter in Malaysia. Any dentist can call himself specialist with just some certifications without going through extensive training and practice
- he lacks of experience
- there wasn't any CBCT scan or computer guidance carried out prior to and during the treatment to analyse the jawbone and condition of the implant. In fact, the whole treatment was just mere guessing (another lessons learned)

Anyone has similar experience? Mind to share?

This post has been edited by jefkin: Aug 27 2019, 07:55 PM

Hey how did it go for you eventually? Did you manage to get it fixed? I’m thinking to get an implant but quite worried about this kinda risk.

before an implant is placed, a thorough assessment of the missing tooth site is carried out. Normally it should also consist of a examination that includes medical history, dental history, periodontal status, clinical examination and radiographic examination.

There are many reasons for a placed implant to fail and I certainly won't go through that. But to answer your question, as the clinician who provided you the implant should ensure that it will successfully integrate with the bone. The clinician should be able to identify all the risk factors before placing the implants, hence if a failure occurred for the high risk cases that was identified (ie the patient has poor oral hygiene, diabetic, etc), it shouldn't come as a surprise. They shouldn't be charging you again for the replacement implant.

Sorry, off topic.
Similarly there are many aesthetic doctors who called themselves a dermatologist just because of some certifications from short term courses.
I found out that to become a real Dermatologist, one would have to be a medical specialist first before they go into another 3-4 years of training.
My advice is for every healthcare related consults or procedures, it is best to go to a reputable centers where the doctors are the real specialists and that they were vetted before they were hired.

Let me just clarify the myth surrounding this topic. First of all there is no implant specialist registered in Malaysia as of now. It is kind of a grey area where any dentist who is experience will be able to perform it. Oral surgeon claimed they are doing better because they do surgical stuff. Periodontist claimed they can do better because they are good with gum surgeries which results in aesthetic and strong implants. Prostodontist claim that they can do better because ultimately, they are the one who decide how your crown looks like and who cares what technique the dentist does as long as a strong nice implant is supporting a crown that allow patient to eat and smile nicely. And someone was saying the implant was placed without CBCT and guided surgery. To make it easier to understand CBCT and guided surgery VS free hand implant placement and normal 2D radiograph, I will just use a simple analogy. To drive from KL to putrajaya, you can either take a mercedes or a kancil. But in the unfortunate event that you were to meet with an accident, I believe the driver of the Mercedes will be suffering less injury as compare to the driver of kancil assume of the same collision impact. However Mercedes is so much more expensive. Same thing over here, a CBCT and a 3D printed surgical guide can be better like a Mercedes but at the same time the cost will be so much higher. Do you drive a Mercedes because it offers better protection? If you are, then you are going to the wrong dentist that doesn't offer you something better which you can afford. There is no harm doing implants without CBCT or guided surgery as long as the dentist KNOWS the limits. Otherwise kancil would have been ban on the road. Please don't try to win a F1 race with a kancil. Maybe you can try with a Mercedes. But that doesn't make a kancil a useless scrap.

Well i guesss what u paid is what you get . Some dentist can get very good implant placed without the aid if cbct and surgical guides. Hopefully not in the too distant future ,all implants placement in malaysia will be done with cbct ane surgical guide .

General dentist are allowed to place implants. Implantology is not a branch of specialisation worldwide. But high lvl of difficulty cases may require intervention of specialist .