TEAM 1500 Economic Impact Study Finds the Cost of Basic Dental Care Could Double if ADA Proposal is Adopted

he cost of standard, recommended teeth cleaning, on average, will soar to more than $500 per oral sedation dental patient nationwide – and will go even higher in some rural and small town locations.

That is one of the conclusions of an economic impact study undertaken by TEAM 1500, a coalition of more than 1,500 health care providers and others concerned with patients' rights. 

The TEAM 1500 economic impact study, known as T1EIS, was compiled between June and September 2015, drawing on data and calculations obtained from a cross-section of practicing oral health care professionals, dental school academics, regulatory experts, and financial forecasters.

T1EIS was overseen by Dean Rotbart, an award-winning financial journalist who previously served as an investment columnist and investigative financial reporter at The Wall Street Journal. Rotbart is director of TEAM 1500, which strongly opposes the ADA's effort to rewrite the ADA guidelines governing sedation dentistry – a proposal known as ADA Resolution 77.

Members of the ADA's House of Delegates are scheduled to vote on ADA Resolution 77 at the group's annual convention early next month in Washington, D.C. TEAM 1500 contends that ADA Resolution 77 discriminates against lower-income and minority patients, who will be unable to afford the higher fees that dentists will charge for their basic services should the new guidelines be adopted. 

T1EIS estimates that as many as 50,000 patients – the majority of them from lower-income and minority communities – will stop getting routine dental treatments within the first two years following the adoption of ADA Resolution 77.

Higher dental fees and longer wait times to see a qualified dentist will drive patients away en masse, T1EIS found. Within five years, an estimated 250,000 fearful and anxious patients who currently see a dentist on a regular basis will stop going, T1EIS forecasts.

The ADA's proposed revisions to its sedation guidelines would require dentists who wish to offer their patients enteral moderation sedation – a common treatment currently provided safely and effectively by more than 20,000 general dentists – to more than double the amount of training that is currently recommended. The cost of such additional training would run as high as $50,000 or more per dentist.

T1EIS found that many dentists and future dental school graduates will not be willing to spend the extra money and take the extended time away from their patients that ADA Resolution 77 would demand. As a result, T1EIS found that:

• The total number of dentists available to provide sedation dentistry will decline by 5% to 7% annually if ADA Resolution 77 is approved, factoring in the retirement and attrition of existing dentists. 
  
  Within five years of adoption of ADA Resolution 77, the number of general dentists who are qualified to provide sedation dentistry to their fearful and anxious patients could decline by more than 30% nationwide.

Ironically, T1EIS found that ADA Resolution 77 will do great harm to the American Dental Association itself, as well as to its members. T1EIS estimates that:

• As many as 10,000 general dentists will drop their ADA membership over the first five years after adoption of Resolution 77 – costing the organization at least $12 million in annual dues, based upon current rates.
• The number of dental school graduates who become ADA members within the first five years following graduation, will decline by 25% to 30%.
• The value of existing dental practices that offer oral sedation will drop by at least 10% in the first year, and by as much as 50% within a decade of passage of ADA Resolution 77.  With far fewer dentists qualified each year to provide sedation dental services, the diminished number of prospective buyers for existing practices will push practice values down.

"You don't have to be an economist to realize that ADA Resolution 77 will harm the most vulnerable dental patients and is detrimental to the well-being of the entire dental profession," Rotbart says.

"If the ADA had conducted its own thorough economic impact study, I have no doubt that it, too, would have concluded that ADA Resolution 77 will not only harm low-income and minority patient populations disproportionally – it will be a disaster for the ADA itself, in terms of snowballing membership cancellations, dwindling participation by recent dental school graduates, and nose-diving membership revenues."

TEAM 1500 believes that ADA Resolution 77 helps no one – not dentists and not patients.  The only ones who stand to benefit are a small, self-interested, politically motivated group of ADA members who are hoping to push ADA Resolution 77 through while members of the ADA House of Delegates and other ADA leaders are not paying attention.

TEAM 1500 is urging all ADA members to phone their district delegates directly to protest ADA Resolution 77. Call-to-Action details can be found on TEAM 1500's website, including a state-by-state listing of ADA House of Delegates members and their contact information. Visit: http://www.team1500.org/cta2.html.

Source: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/team-1500-economic-impact-study-finds-the-cost-of-basic-dental-care-could-double-if-ada-proposal-is-adopted-300166671.html

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