Reform dentistry but don ’ t blindly copy the medical model

It’s always struck me as odd that the dental and medical systems are so separate. Oral health and overall health are closely interlinked, and the mouth is just as much a part of the body as anything else. A commentary in Health Affairs (The Dental-Medical Divide) by Elizabeth A. Mertz, a dental professor at UCSF does a good job of laying out the current state and what to expect going forward. While I learned from the article and agree with many of the conclusions, I do think it’s important that dentistry continue to deviate in some ways from the path followed by the medical profession. Dentists started as barber/surgeons, and when medical education was organized in the 19th century, dentistry was left out. As dentists started to organize themselves, they naturally built up their own, strong organizations that served their interests and perpetuated the status quo. There was no particular pressure (or even opportunity) to integrate with the medical realm, so the separation has persisted. On the insurance side, there are also some fundamental differences between the medical and dental fields. In medicine, traditional models of insurance make more sense, because there is a need to insure against very high cost, relatively rare events. In dentistry, most of the costs are for routine, preventive care that should not be financially ruinous. Almost everyone has caries (decay/cavities) and about half of adults have periodontal disease, so there’s not a huge pool of healthy peopl...
Source: Health Business Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Policy and politics innovation LANAP Source Type: blogs