Tag Archives: dental

A look into dentists under pressure to overtreat by their chains

DentalChainTroubles

Photo: Anthony via Flickr

A reporting team’s in-depth investigation into a growing dental chain offers a troubling chronicle of dentists under pressure to meet revenue targets and patient allegations of overtreatment.

Reporters from USA Today and Newsy, the investigative unit owned by E. W. Scripps Company, spent more than a year examining the inner workings of North American Dental Group. The Pittsburg-based chain represents “a new trend of dental offices bought by private-equity investors and turned into revenue-generating machines,” their project explained. Continue reading

Reporter explores impact of medical credit cards on dental debt

Manuela-Tobias

Manuela Tobias

Dental patients in need of costly procedures may turn to medical credit cards to pay for the services. But these cards, which often include deferred-interest provisions, can pose risks.

If consumers do not fully understand the terms or fall behind on payments, they can end up facing inflated bills and crippling dental debts, as Fresno Bee reporter Manuela Tobias explained in a recent investigative piece. Continue reading

Studies examine dental ailments as a driver of prescription abuse

Spurred by concerns about opioid addiction and antibiotic overuse, experts have urged clinicians across health care disciplines to take a hard look at their prescribing habits. Dentists, who are numbered among the nation’s leading prescribers of opioids and antibiotics, have been included in these warnings.

Dentists were responsible for writing more than 11 million opioid prescriptions one recent year, yet experts have cautioned that addiction often begins with such routine prescriptions. Continue reading

Many dental procedures considered ‘non-essential’ during COVID-19 crisis

Photo: Naval Surface Warriors via Flickr

Dental providers across the U.S. are being urged to limit most services in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on March 18 recommended that clinicians and hospitals delay non-essential dental, medical and surgical procedures not only to reduce the spread of disease but also to conserve personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline health care workers responding to the virus outbreak. Continue reading

Study documents disparities that contribute to late diagnosis of oral cancer

OralCancerScreening

Photo: Stephanie Young Merzel via Flickr

Research has long shown that Americans from minority groups and those with a lower socioeconomic status are less likely to get routine dental visits than patients who are white and more affluent. A new study finds that even when minorities or those who are poorer and less educated do receive oral health services, they are less likely to receive oral cancer (OC)screenings that could lead an early diagnosis. Continue reading