Dental assistant Stephanie Harris and Dr. Renee Watts with a student on the Tooth Taxi

Here is a stunning fact: Oregon children have among the worst oral health in the nation. Because of poverty, lack of access to care, and other social and economic issues Oregon children suffer more dental pain and infection than children in almost any other state. Dental disease isn’t a cosmetic problem. Our children deserve more from us. The Dental Foundation of Oregon is working to improve oral health for Oregon’s children. Find out more about our work and how you can help by clicking on this link: http://smileonoregon.org/.

Managing dental costs

The past few years have been economically challenging for many here in Lane County. As a dental office, we hear many of our patients’ concerns with the costs of dental care. We are conscious that health care can be a significant expense for some people, especially if it’s an unplanned expense.?Health care costs are due to many factors including technology, increased standards of care and the fact that it is highly labor-intensive, requiring the attention of well-trained personnel. Here are a few tips to keep your costs down:

1. Do Your Homework Being attentive to your daily dental care routine and using preventive strategies whenever possible will make your cleaning visits easier and help minimize gum problems. Regular use of xylitol, fluoride and nightguards can help reduce risks for people susceptible to cavities and nighttime clenching or grinding. Ask your dental team for specific recommendations for you.

2. Scheduled Maintenance Just like your car, regular maintenence visits will help keep things in working order. Regular exams, xrays and cleanings can detect problems at early stages, meaning easier and less expensive fixes. With our health, often by the time we feel symptoms, disease has reached moderate to advanced stages. This past week a patient who we hadn’t seen in two years returned as she’d noticed a hole in a tooth but hadn’t felt any discomfort. The tooth with the hole and the adjacent tooth both had advanced decay, will need extensive treatment and cost many times what it would have had the decay been detected and treated early.

3. Budget To use the car analogy again, build dental care into your family budget as you would oil changes and new tires. Take advantage of any workplace plans that allow you to defer pre-tax dollars for health care expenses.

4. Think Long-Term When possible, choose higher-quality, longer lasting materials for dental restorations over temporary, short-term solutions. Fewer replacements over your lifetime cost fewer dollars in the long run and keep your teeth in better condition.

5. Reduce Your Overall Health Risks Adopting healthier lifestyle choices such as quitting smoking, improving nutrition and controlling diabetes will improve your general and dental health. Many prescription medications used to manage chronic health conditions cause oral effects such as dry mouth and can increase the risk of decay. Although medication may be necessary at times, using exercise and diet whenever possible to reduce the need for pharmaceuticals will save not only prescription costs but improve your oral health.

This past week I received an advertising solicitation for a new document shredding service in Eugene-Springfield. I contemplated it for a minute and quickly realized that it wasn’t something we even needed. Why? We produce so little paper. Our practice has been paperless since 2004. Using computerized charting, digital x-rays, sending electronic insurance claims and e-mail appointment reminders has allowed us to generate very little waste.

Digital x-rays in our Eugene-Springfield dental office also offer the advantage of requiring no fixer or developer chemicals to manage and dispose of. We recycle nearly all the packaging from our supplies and have converted to fluorescent light bulbs wherever possible.

In any health care setting, a number of disposable items must be used for infection control such as gloves, masks, etc. that are unfortunately not recyclable, however we minimize our use of plastic barriers, using high-level disinfectants wherever possible. The plastic barriers that we do use are recycled and we use traps and an amalgam separator to minimize wastewater contamination. We also use recycled products when possible to complete the ‘circle’ of recycling. Reduce, reuse & recycle – we’ll keep working on it and support our product and supply manufacturers who do too!

Last week I was fortunate to attend the American Dental Association’s Washington Leadership Conference in Washington, DC, along with eight other Oregon dentists and Oregon Dental Association staff. The purpose of the meeting was to help us communicate with our congressional representatives on issues affecting dentistry and dental care for Oregonians. Dentists from all over the nation attended as we heard speakers on the recent health care legislation, issues affecting dental offices and patients, and communication. Our own Senator Ron Wyden met with our Oregon delegation and then spoke to the whole conference on the recently passed health care bill. In the photo, Dr. Wes Heringer of Salem and I are visiting the office of 4th District Representative Peter DeFazio. We thanked him for his support of two bills, including one that would make insurance companies subject to the antitrust laws that nearly every other industry is subject to. If the Senate passes the bill, it will make medical & dental insurers compete with each other and hopefully reduce costs and improve covered services for patients. It was interesting to learn more about political processes and how we as citizens can let our congressmen know our thoughts on issues and pending legislation.

Stay tuned this spring for our patient online access service to be enabled! This will allow existing patients to check account balances, status of insurance claims and unused benefits, make online payments and check future appointment times.