Hot Issue # 1:
Access to Care

More than 6 million days of bed disability, 12.7 million days of restricted activity, and 20.5 million days of lost work each year are the result of illnesses related to oral health.

Yet, most oral health problems are preventable with a prevention model that includes: oral health literacy, sound hygiene, and preventive care available through the dental team concept.

Current efforts by some to institute independent mid-level providers to offer access to unsupervised dental care by non-dentists to underserved patients are economically unfeasible, potentially unsafe, and work against the prevention model.

To voice the concerns of general dentists against independent mid-level providers and to provide real workable solutions to solve the access to oral health care challenge, the AGD has developed and adopted an official policy on access to care.

Read the access to dental care AGD white paper titled, Increasing Access to and Utilization of Oral Health Care Services, now!

AGD, including your constituent, will use this policy to take further action with state boards, legislators, dental organizations, the public, and other communities of interest in the upcoming months to address access to dental care.

Read more comments about the mid-level providers, by visiting the AGD’s Blog and Immediate Past President Dr. Vincent Mayher’s response to ADA’s editorial.

For more information on this topic or to contact the AGD Task Force on Access to Care, please contact its AGD staff liaison, Srini Varadarajan, Esq., director, Dental Care Advocacy, at srini.varadarajan@agd.org.