Dentists Are Ringing Up Brighter Smiles

Your dentist has reason to smile.

The vanity of Southern Californians makes this an unusually good market for a rapidly growing source of business in the profession, cosmetic dentistry.

“In the West, rather than the Midwest or East Coast, everything cosmetic is at its height,” Frank Curry, a Newport Beach dentist, says. “Is it because we all run around in bathing suits? I don’t know.”

With more patients demanding to have their pearlies veneered, crowned or bleached, Curry says revenue from such cosmetic procedures has grown to 90% of his practice from 70% in five years.

As a result, Curry and many other local dentists continue to prosper, even though better nutrition and brushing habits are reducing demand for the profession’s traditional mainstay--filling cavities. In contrast to the killer cost-cutting pressures that are driving physicians out of business, Curry and his peers keep passing through fee increases.

So what’s the most popular remedy these days for the unsightly smile? Bleaching, which is also cheapest, costing around $400 to $600 for brightening the dozen incisors, plus eight bicuspids that show when you laugh. The patient does much of the work at home, typically wearing a bleach-filled retainer to bed for a month or so.

For those whose stubborn discoloration won’t yield to bleach, ceramic veneers or crowns offer pricier options, at $700 to $1,000 a tooth.

Dentists hasten to point out, however, the limits of their profession. Says Curry, “Patients bring in photographs of people in magazines and say, ‘I want to look exactly like that’--and that may not be exactly possible.”

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Barbara Marsh covers the health-care industry for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-7762 and at barbara.marsh@latimes.com.

James Marchant, assistant systems editor, contributed to this report.