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Home / MCNTalk / Low-Cost Dental Care Reflects Wider National Debate

November 16, 2010

Low-Cost Dental Care Reflects Wider National Debate

There’s a debate shaping up in Alaska regarding whether dental therapists should be allowed to perform procedures such as administering fillings and completing extractions. Alaska is currently the only state which allows for dental therapists to perform invasive procedures; ten other states are considering legislation to expand (or recognize) the role of dental therapists in a similar manner per this New York Times article.

The debate highlights multiple hot topics in health care discussion today:

  • Access to healthcare (The therapists, who receive two years of training, help fill a vacuum: Alaska has long had trouble attracting and retaining licensed dentists. Given Alaska’s huge size and rural population, for many state residents a trip to the dentists – or any health care practitioner – can be a lengthy event.).
  • The ethnic and socioeconomic divide in health care: 60 percent of Alaska Native children ages 2 to 5 have untreated decay, and 20 percent of Native adults over 55 have no teeth at all.
  • Which professions have the legal right to treat patients in what manner.  
  • Long-term care/preventive care medicine vs. short-term care. (When discussing the ramifications of a dental therapist performing an extraction, Dr. Raymond Gist, the American Dental Association president, notes that: “If you have a person suffering from pain, that person has advanced disease,” said  “I would want that person to see a licensed dentist without delay.” Would an extraction necessarily prevent disease from spreading, or will the patient end up needing yet another extraction as disease spread?)

No one is arguing that patients shouldn’t receive care. But how this particular discussion plays out is an important reflection of a much wider national discussion.

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Tagged: Cost Containment, Health Policy, Legal Issues, Sociology and Language of Medicine, The Practice of Medicine 1 Comment

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  1. Vic Salvo says

    November 16, 2010 at 6:45 pm

    Slippery slope now begins for the Dental Professin. Expanding scoope of practice issues are now plaguing the Medical Industry. Comments like these providers would only work in areas where there is a need are just hogwash. See what has happened to nurse practitioners, a group that received much governtment and other ivory tower support to serve initially in underserved areas but now thanks to misguided politicians have decided that’s not good enough and fancy themselves equivalent to doctors and now compete with them directly (in overserved areas). Some are even calling themselves specialists.
    Dentists have been able to forestall the evils of managed care, but withstanding the political forces and their agendas is a whole ‘nother issue

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