Thank you for your question and i do not blame you at all for feeling confused, astonished and maybe even angry or suspicious!
There is no easy and straightforward answer to your question as i do not know your specific dental needs versus your friends specific dental needs.
But in general terms , you must understand that just like fingerprints, everyone has unique dental issues and needs, especially when it comes to the complex field of dental implants
When you go to see a dental professional, you are consuming a service, not a product. This means that there is often no cookie cutter approach to everyones dental needs. Because of this fact, it is reasonable to expect that most dental clinics can only provide you with a range of fees for implants , according to the difficulty of the case, instead of one standard fee for all.
In your particular situation, you maybe quoted $5k because your case maybe more complex than your friends case .
The key questions to ask is: Why is your case more complex? Is your higher fee truly justified as compared to your friend's case which only cost him $3.5k?
In my humble opinion, the only way to find out for sure, is to ask your dentist. Hopefully, he will be able to explain to you why that in your particular case, it will be more expensive than compared to your friends.
There is a myriad of factors that may result in your case being more complex than others. Some of these factors can be very technical and is beyond the scope of this reply. Some of the easier to understand factors have been mentioned in the previous answers by my esteemed colleagues.
Here are 2 articles that i have written about dental implants that you may find useful in your search for an answer:
https://www.human.com.sg/dental-implant-costs-singapore-dentist-tells-all
https://www.human.com.sg/dental-implant-singapore
I wish you all the best in your dental implant journey and all the best in finding a dentist you can trust and feel comfortable with!
Kind Regards,
Dr Gerald Tan
