Re: WGA Strike 90%+ vote to strike

On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 02:08:38 -0800 (PST), Rob Perkins
<rrperkin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Dec 31 2007, 7:14 pm, Josh Hill <userepl...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

It's harder to get an appointment in the dental clinic here. And
that's in a prosperous northern state, not one of the selfish bible
thumping ones. I read an article not long ago about the increase in
dental rates and the difficulty the poor are having in getting dental
care. It seems that whereas there was a surplus of dentists some years
ago, now there's a shortage.

There is a shortage of dentists willing to bill out at the State's
rates for dental procedures. I've been told that this is because if
they were to do so, they would swiftly be unable to make payroll. Or
make student loan payments. Out in the end of the county where all the
upper middle class commuters live, there are four dentists for every
mini-mall, and they all have growing practices.

The dentists who *do* take the State medicaid cases tend to be older,
very well-established, and largely out of debt. They also tend to be
located in the older areas of town, in historically poor areas.

There was a discussion in the article I read of the fact that dentists
tend to view their practices as business, while doctors consider it
their duty to take charity cases.

One thing our school district has attempted is to have a dentist and
hygienist visit the schools, and perform procedures in a mobile
office. The rates for that are generally in the range of the State
payouts, but a parent would have to be cognizant enough to catch the
permission form coming home with the kid.

In some areas, there's a movement afoot
to let hygienists and such do routine restorations.

That movement is not merely afoot; my brother's practice trains
assistants and hygienists to do CEREC design work. This is the
procedure in which the dentist prepares a decayed tooth for a crown,
and then uses an imager and a specialized CAD software package to
mill the crown in about 20 minutes time. I have seen him prep the
tooth and hand the computer work to the assistant. Then he checks the
work and the mill makes the crown.

Haven't dentists always relied on laboratories for that sort of thing?
When I was a kid, my dentist had a laboratory in house where they made
gold inlays. I've assumed that the stumbling block here is the actual
work in a patient's mouth -- some are saying that you don't want an
under-trained assistant to do that kind of work, others are saying
that whatever it is it's better than no dentistry at all.

--
Josh

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because
I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

.

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