JENNIFER GATES, 40, a hairstylist and makeup artist from Northern California, hadn’t seen a dentist in a decade when she got the call last spring. Her father, Jerry Halley, 64, phoned to say he desperately needed crowns for a few back teeth and other work. Without insurance, Mr. Halley, who owns a landscaping business in Oregon, would have to pay the estimated $8,000 bill.

“We all needed quality dental care, fast,” said Ms. Gates, whose own dental-work estimate was $20,000 and whose immediate family was also uninsured. “So, I started planning.”

Ms. Gates found a reputable dentist through friends of her parents who had traveled to Mexico for care. Six weeks later, Ms. Gates flew to join her parents for a week of massages and tanning in San José del Cabo, Mexico, punctuated, in her case, by daily visits to Dr. Rosa Peña for five procedures including a root canal.

In the last year, Ms. Gates, who had a tooth so deteriorated she could touch its nerve with her tongue, has returned with her parents, husband and 14-year-old son to scuba dive and to open wide for Dr. Peña. Her 20-year-old daughter and son-in-law also have made a trip. All told Ms. Gates’s extended clan has had 12 crowns, 6 dental veneers, 4 root canals, over half a dozen fillings, 6 whitening treatments and 2 broken teeth fixed at a savings, they say, of tens of thousands of dollars. “Dr. Rosy is now our family dentist,” Ms. Gates said.