How to Transition into a Dental Medicine Model
Suitable for both novice and advanced laser users. Dentists are encouraged to attend with or without their hygienist.
Since periodontal disease is a chronic bacterial infection that can cause chronic inflammation which leads to chronic disease, it would seem that clinically successful non-invasive therapies such as laser, ozone and periodontal trays would be widely implemented in dental offices. Yet my dental practice code analysis of hundreds of practices nationwide shows over 50% of the 100 patients seen per month have gum disease, but the average practice billed only $2,500 per month in periodontal therapies (4,000-4999.99 codes). In 2012, one hundred seventeen million people, half of all adults-,have at least one chronic disease[1]and forty eight percent of deaths are caused by heart disease and cancer alone[2]costing $717 BILLION.[3],[4]Add in the total estimated cost of diagnosed diabetes ($245 billion in 2012[5]) for a total of $962 BILLION just for the top three chronic illnesses.
Today, my vision of physicians and dentists cross referring; using a combination of therapies to eliminate gum disease as a chronic disease risk factor hasn’t changed. My understanding of the difficulty of changing the existing dental model has. To change a system, thinking and paradigms must shift. The new system is often “out of the box” and the opposite of what we assumed to be true. I pinpoint specific changes in thinking and protocol to create a dental medicine practice. Understanding these changes may help dentists become more health centered and rightfully claim their role as health care providers resolving our current health care crises.
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Objective 1 Defining the dental medicine role via periodontal health, sleep disorders and TMD. How changing Periodontal protocols makes entry into sleep disorders and TMD easier.
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Objective 2 Understand Dental Medicine Protocol Change Factors regarding diagnosis; treatment planning, presentation and tx delivery. How to get the team and patients on your “health mission”.
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Objective 3 How to translate health research into a call to action for dentists, team, patients, physicians to actually change how patients are diagnosed, TX planned, Presented and treated even though insurance doesn’t cover all procedures.
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Objective 4 How to get the physician involved to co-manage patient care that leads to referrals. I will share real client testimonies.
