Dentist appointments are hard to book

Waiting itself is also a form of healing for your well-being. In this impatient era, people crave instant comfort, often overlooking that a slower pace is the essence of order. If you feel uneasy, why not try to calm your mind while waiting and let your anxiety dissipate with time?

Can't be helped. Dental care is generally not great for Taiwanese people in daily life. Add 'diseases of civilization' and 'procrastination disease,' and clinic appointments are naturally snapped up instantly.

Good dentists are hard to find, and dental problems are rarely fixed in one go.

I'm curious too.

Lots of people

Slowly heal and slowly earn health insurance points.

Cavities usually don't just happen in one tooth at a time. However, national health insurance coverage seems to be calculated by the number of visits, so many dentists treat one tooth at a time and file claims separately.

Nowadays, many dental clinics operate on an appointment-only basis and mostly recommend self-paid treatments. This is because relying solely on national health insurance for dental care is less efficient than general internal medicine (earns less). Most clinics now promote self-paid procedures like implants and orthodontics, which are time-consuming (requiring many follow-up visits) and have higher price points. I once had a child who was resistant to tooth extraction. I visited three pediatric dental clinics, and all recommended self-paid general anesthesia starting from 100,000 NTD (approx. $3,300 USD). In the end, I couldn't afford it (it was just a baby tooth that hadn't fallen out yet) and found my old dentist. The elderly dentist coaxed the child for a minute, then extracted the tooth in another minute. The moment the baby tooth came out, the child was still stunned. It was all settled for just a 250 NTD (approx. $8 USD) registration fee, handling what the previous three clinics recommended as a 100,000 NTD project(?)

The dental clinic itself has issues too. Even for things that can be done in one visit, they still schedule you for another appointment.