Questions to ask before paying a dental treatment deposit

A deposit is the point at which a conversation becomes a commitment. It is usually requested early, often before anybody clinical has examined you, and it is frequently the moment at which questions stop being asked.

It is worth being deliberate about, because a deposit does two things at once: it holds a booking, and it makes you much less likely to walk away.

What a deposit should actually secure

Reasonably, a deposit secures dates. Clinical time is booked, a laboratory slot may be reserved, and the clinic has committed resource to you.

That is legitimate and normal. What a deposit should not do is buy an unspecified quantity of treatment at an unspecified price.

Before paying anything, you should already have:

• A written treatment plan, tooth by tooth
• A written price, with the currency stated
• What is included and excluded
• The dates the deposit secures
• The refund terms, in writing

If any of those is missing, the deposit is not securing a booking. It is securing your commitment.

The questions

1. What exactly is this deposit for?

Booking fee, part-payment of treatment, or payment for a specific item such as a scan? These are different things with different refund implications.

2. Is it refundable, and under what circumstances?

Ask about each case separately, because clinics often treat them differently:

• You cancel more than a month ahead
• You cancel a few days ahead
• Your visa is refused or your flight is cancelled
• You arrive and the plan changes, and you decline the revised plan
• The clinic cancels or reschedules
• You are found to be unsuitable for the proposed treatment

That fourth case is the important one. If the plan and the price can change on arrival but the deposit cannot come back, the deposit has quietly become a penalty for saying no to a plan you have not yet seen.

3. Is it deducted from the total, or in addition to it?

It should be deducted. Confirm it in writing anyway.

4. What currency, and what happens if the exchange rate moves?

Quotes from Istanbul are commonly in euros, sterling, dollars or lira. If a lira figure is quoted and paid weeks later, the amount in your own currency will have changed. Establish which currency the balance is due in and whether the figure is fixed.

5. What is the total, and when is the balance due?

On arrival, at the first appointment, or in stages as treatment proceeds? Staged payment tied to treatment stages is generally better for you than paying everything on day one.

6. What happens if the plan changes after my scan?

The most common source of dispute in treatment abroad. The online plan says twelve units; the scan on arrival says eighteen, or says a bone graft is needed first.

Ask in advance:

• Who decides?
• Will I get a revised written plan and price before anything starts?
• Can I decline the revision, and what have I paid at that point?
• If I decline and go home, what is refunded?

Get the answer in writing. This one question protects more money than all the others combined.

7. Am I paying for something a dentist has not yet assessed?

If no clinician has reviewed your case, the deposit is against a plan produced from photographs. That may still be reasonable — but you should know that is what it is, and the refund terms should reflect it.

8. How am I paying, and what protection does that give me?

This is not a detail. Payment method determines what you can do if something goes wrong.

• Bank transfer to a foreign account gives you essentially no recourse once sent
• Card payment may give you a route to dispute a charge through your card provider. In the UK, Section 75 protection applies to credit card purchases within a value range, though its application to services bought abroad is not straightforward
• Cash on arrival gives you no record beyond a receipt

Ask for the payment to go to the clinic's own registered business account, and ask for a receipt naming the clinic. A request to pay a personal account, an intermediary, or a company in a third country is a reason to stop and ask why.

Never pay in cryptocurrency. There is no reversal, no chargeback, and no trace you can act on.

9. Who am I actually contracting with?

Some clinics operate through a separate agency or facilitator. If your deposit goes to an agency and the treatment is provided by a clinic, establish which of them owes you the treatment and which of them owes you the refund. They may not be the same entity, and the agency may not exist in a form you can pursue.

Ask for the full registered name and address of whoever receives the money.

10. What does the guarantee say, and can I see it now?

Before the deposit, not after. A guarantee produced after payment is a document you had no opportunity to evaluate.

What should make you pause

• Pressure to pay today for a price that "expires"
• A deposit requested before any written plan exists
• Refund terms that are verbal, or "we always sort it out"
• Payment to a personal account, or to a name that is not the clinic's
• A request to pay in cryptocurrency
• A deposit that is a large fraction of the total
• Reluctance to send the guarantee document
• Any suggestion that asking these questions indicates a lack of trust

That last one deserves saying plainly. These are ordinary commercial questions about a significant sum of money paid to a business in another country. A clinic that finds them offensive is telling you how it responds to scrutiny, which is exactly what you are trying to find out.

Before you send anything

• Have the written plan and price in a file you keep
• Have the refund terms in writing
• Have the guarantee document
• Have the clinic's registered name, address and licence details
• Screenshot the advertised price and terms
• Keep every message

If the treatment goes perfectly, none of this matters. It costs an hour. It is the cheapest insurance available on the whole trip.

Questions worth asking any Istanbul clinic

1. What is this deposit for, and is it deducted from the total?
2. Under exactly which circumstances is it refundable?
3. What happens if my plan changes after the scan, and can I decline?
4. Which currency is the balance in, and is the figure fixed?
5. When is the balance due, and can it be staged against treatment?
6. Which legal entity am I paying, and is that the same one providing treatment?
7. Can I pay by card, to the clinic's own account?
8. Can I see the guarantee document before I pay?

The short version

A deposit should buy you dates against a written plan at a written price. If it is buying anything less specific than that, wait until it is.

And answer one question before you send money: if the plan changes on arrival and I say no, what happens to this? The answer tells you almost everything you need to know.