Car crashes are unpredictable and rare, so it makes sense to insure them.
Regular car maintenance is predictable and tends to happen in (almost?) every insurance period, so it's not - some payment plan or bundling may be an option, but insurance makes no sense, it would only be more expensive than paying directly because of an extra middleman.
Getting a broken leg or cancer is unpredictable (there are individual risk factors, but they are just as relevant for car crashes) and rare, so it makes sense to insure them.
Dental care, on the other hand is common and regular - e.g. someone who didn't have coverage for broken leg or cancer most likely won't get a broken leg or cancer in the next year, but all the people who have been unable to afford dentistry generally almost all will need dentistry in the next year. Some payment plan or bundling may be an option, but insurance makes no sense, it would only be more expensive than paying directly because of an extra middleman. If you are unable to afford dentistry, then you'd be unable to afford the insurance price hike.
It's not a problem of insurance as such, it's a problem of who pays for healthcare of poor people. USA has a weird historical artifact in that in the last >100 years insurance has become almost a synonym for employer-funded healthcare payment plans, not as real insurance. If you want employer-funded healthcare to include dentistry, then that's not going to be solved by medical people but the employment market - industries where workers have market power (e.g. IT) will get such conditions, and industries where worker's don't have market power (e.g. fast food) won't. Also, this can't solve the manner of dentistry for unemployed or underemployed people who don't get employer-funded insurance and thus a dentistry-included insurance would be as expensive or more than just paying for a dentist.
That fits fine for things like cleanings, cavities, and implants - but what about impacted wisdom teeth and resultant issues? Broken teeth due to impact injuries? Even people with excellent dental hygiene have a decent chance of chipping a tooth, and even those types of things aren't covered under medical insurance.
And how is that anything useful anyway? It's not like dentistry is any cheaper when your employer pays for it. If anything it will be more expensive because of the added bureaucracy and separation of who pays from who benefits. This is one of the reasons costs have spiraled out of control in the US healthcare market. If you need money for dentistry, ask your employer for a raise, not dental insurance.
And your dealer would probably be happy to sell you an extended warranty or something else along these lines and pocket the nice margins.
Get cancer? That could be a million dollars in treatment. You need insurance.
Get a bad tooth? Maybe 3k max to replace it with a bridge or similar.
The idea is most people can scrouge up 3k but not a million bucks.
The reality is far from that, though. Roughly a third of the citizens of the US would have to go into debt to secure $3K on the spot, they don't just have that laying around in the bank. Doing so could easily cause a downward spiral where one would have to choose between basic necessities or moving back in with family for months or even years to pay back the debt (I know because I've been there).
Hell, our household income is nearly $70k and while we do have enough in savings to cover such an emergency, it would still be painful and it would take us months to recover the money. Thankfully we both work for local government and have decent dental coverage, but it's a far cry from the much better health insurance we enjoy.
Also, the idea that major dental surgery is "just" $3K is amusing. My bill for removing my wisdom teeth came to nearly $12K, of which my insurance paid all but $800 thankfully. That wasn't even the total cost either; I developed a severe infection and when I called my dental surgeon he told me to go to the emergency room (another $1200) to have it drained and get an antibiotic prescribed. The emergency room gave me the antibiotic but told me to go to the dental surgeon for anything else. It's a total clusterfuck.
Preventative dental work is dirt cheap and corrective dental work is relatively rare, and costs rarely spiral out of control.
That sounds like a much better deal to me, as an insurer, than insuring any other body part.
Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2016/10/...
Fire-up Excel and develop a financial model for providing dental insurance to a million people.
On another tab, develop a financial model for providing mid-range health insurance to a million people.
Finally, develop a financial model for providing automobile insurance to a million people.
This will answer all your questions.
badly translated article https://translate.google.hr/translate?sl=hr&tl=en&js=y&prev=...
This was purely a Dental Council regulation, anyone at the time could call themselves doctor, it wasn't a criminal offence.
With the arrival of dentists from EU countries who were allowed to do so, UK dentists felt they were being put at a disadvantage in the eyes of the general public.
The GDC eventually relented with an announcement to the effect that dentists doing this would not be taken action against any longer.
But they clearly didn't approve!
Technically they could receive that degree without a bachelor's degree, but I've never heard of anyone getting into medical or dental school without having received an undergraduate degree.
Optometrist is Doctors of Optometry (O.D.s). Pharmacist is Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D). Nurse has the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP). Veterinarian is Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM). Physical therapist is Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT). Chiropractor is Doctor of Chiropractic (DC). Of course dentist is Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS).
Medical doctors have to use another term Physician to avoid the confusion.
currently it costs 150$ to show up 10 minutes early for an appointment to be seen 20 minutes late for an interaction that lasts 5 minutes. and then i say 'my knee also hurts' and they say you need to schedule another appointment if you want to discuss any other ailments. insurance covers 100$ of that, but I am under no illusion of the cost.
do we need to raise dental awareness? sure. do we need to put it under the bureaucracy and price fixing of the medical system? i dont think so
That seems more an indictment of the medical education system than the insurance system. There are already parallel medical education systems in the US (MD vs. DO, although there is little practical difference). Seeing either type of physician is treated equally by health insurance. Why can't health insurance also cover DDS visits as well?
Uh, not exactly. MDs and DOs do receive different sorts of education, and insurance can distinguish between them.
Most dentists won't even need additional education - after all, we are actually just trying to get what they do covered. It doesn't mean the system or education must change, and in practice it will be like going to a specialist without having to visit the GP first. You wouldn't complain to the gastric specialist that your knee hurts either.
The bigger changes would be in health insurance coverage and things like that. Basic cleanings are more likely to be cheap: extractions might wind up costing more if one must pay their deductible first. Sure, some of the services will continue to be cosmetic only - but plastic surgeons (who often also do reconstructive surgery along with complicated dental extractions) seem to manage this just fine.
You being seen on time isn't an issue with this, honestly. Some doctor's offices have a habit of being on time. You can let them know upfront that you have multiple issues as well - this allows them to schedule more time with you (and bill insurance accordingly).
dental insurance is already a lot more affordable, its just that people treat their dentist like an emergency intervention rather than maintenance.
that is solved through awareness, not trying to pull dentistry into the incredible blob
Dentists can easily make more money than the majority of physicians. Not to mention they don't have a residency, my few dentist friends came out of dental school at 26 making 150k+.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber_surgeon
Also, all this was done in a very unsanitary way. In fact medicine was unsanitary in the West until Florence Nightingale conducted an statistical survey showing that cleaner spaces had fewer mortality rates.
Before brushing, I'd say. Then the fluoride in the toothpaste can better reach between the teeth.
Oh, and what about podiatrists? Health care seems sufficiently splintered that I would have never wondered why dentistry is separate.
Podiatrists are doctors, they just have their own medical schools AKA podiatry school - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podiatric_medical_school
Podiatrists are sometimes ridiculed for not being real doctors like dermatologists. However, to diabetics they are life savers.
An optician designs lenses and fits glasses.
In many cases, eyewear shops have ophthalmologists employed on site with all necessary equipment and they test you for free.
In the U.K., dental care is available on treated on the NHS just like other forms of care.
All non-emergency health in the UK is mediated via your GP. Except dentistry. All expert medical procedures in the UK will be carried out by an MD, no matter what part of your body they're on. Except for your teeth. For any serious medical treatment in the UK that requires anaesthesia, or surgery, you are likely to be treated at a general hospital which happens to have an appropriate unit. Except ... dentistry, where they have specialist dental hospitals.
Finally, treatment on the NHS for all medical conditions is free at point of use, except for prescriptions. Except dentistry, which is merely subsidised, and generally provided by dentists who work privately, and offer to provide slightly different treatments on the NHS than they do privately.
Point of pedantry, which doesn't really affect your argument: the professional medical degree in the UK is the MBChB (Bachelor of Medicine / Bachelor of Surgery -- abbreviation can vary by institution). The MD is either a research degree (similar to a PhD) or, at certain older universities, a higher doctorate similar to a DSc. In either case, most British doctors don't have one.
Dentists can take a mix of private and (public) NHS patients or specialise purely in private or NHS. If you move to a new area it can sometimes be hard to get into a practice as an NHS patient.
NHS dental care is heavily subsidised but not entirely free (See here for prices where I am in Scotland - https://www.scottishdental.org/public/treatment-charges/)
Typically, if I get a check up and need nothing done other than scale and polish the cost is around 15 USD (The exam part being free)
As a consequence, having some dental insurance plan is not uncommon here - my partner needs more dental work than I do so has such a plan called Denplan.
As one can imagine some grey areas can make it difficult to determine whether a dentist treatment is covered or not.
In Japan, basic dentistry is covered the same under national health insurance, but for instance if you want a ceramic crown instead of metal, you have to pay for that yourself. Dentists and general medicine are completely separate institutions though.
