Fluoridation fight marks new pain point for dentists

Yahoo

2 days ago

BOSTON (SHNS) – Dr. Derek Song took the day off from his dental clinic in Burlington on Wednesday to urge Beacon Hill to support dentistry amidst threats to fluoridation and dental care coverage.
'Water fluoridation has been around for a number of years at a safe level, which is seven parts per million, which has been proven by science to be safe and effective,' Song said at a State House advocacy event. Song and other dentists with the Massachusetts Dental Society oppose a bill presented by Rep. Justin Thurber (H 2548) that would ban Massachusetts from putting fluoride in municipal water systems through fluoridation water additives.
'This is going to lead to rampant cavities everywhere. And you know who this is going to hit the most? Those in underserved communities, unfortunately, especially children,' Song said.
Voters at Town Meeting in Somerset in May passed an article to remove fluoride from the town's drinking water. The article instructs the Board of Selectmen to petition the state for a home rule exemption so the town can enact a fluoride ban. On a national scale, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in April he plans to tell the Centers for Disease Control to stop recommending fluoride in drinking water.
Song said that federal messaging is causing his patients to doubt what he called 'scientific and factual' dental health tools like fluoride. He added that the underserved communities that would be most impacted by fluoride bans are also the ones having challenges accessing dental care, which would be exacerbated by proposed Congressional cuts to Medicaid funding.
'This is really alarming. This is a public health crisis, and as a dentist, I just cannot sit idly by and let this happen,' Song told the News Service.
The 'chief complaint' among Massachusetts dentists over the last three months has surrounded Medicaid reimbursements, according to Dental Society President Abe Abdul. 'The new vendor that has been hired to handle Medicaid is failing, and doctors, dentists, practices are not being paid, essentially, for the work that's being done, simply because they transitioned vendors and there's an issue with the transition,' Abdul said.
Dentists continue to face a shortage of dental hygienists, Abdul said, despite a 2024 law that allows foreign-trained hygienists to get a license in Massachusetts.
'It's law now, but it's still stuck in the regulatory phase. They need to create the regulations. I guarantee you, you ask any office, you go to any dental practice, people can't get in because they can't get a hygienist,' Abdul said, adding that he has not heard of a regulatory or implementation process timeline.
Dentists say a different bill (H 1262) the Society opposes creates 'loopholes' in a 2022 voter law that created a dental loss ratio, mandating dental insurance companies spend 83% of their revenue on direct patient care.
Dentists pointed to a Sen. John Cronin bill (S 704) as a way to form a more transparent relationship between practices and insurers by disclosing virtual credit card payment fees.
'We don't know about these fees until we type them into the computer through our Merchant Services and then find out, 'Oh, great, we're going to lose 5% of that income,'' Dr. Tej Shah said. 'We have to pay ridiculous fees just to get paid for the services that we did.'
'A check for $100 is $100. In a credit card, $100 — they get as much as maybe 3% cash back. So they only pay $97. And then, because of the overhead of using a virtual credit card, we might get as much as a 5% fee. So then it's only $95 to us,' Shah, who runs Zen Family Dental in Ashland, said.
Every time that happens, Shah said, he has to make a phone call to get that switched. The overhead fees only add to 'skyrocketing' inflation for the price of dentistry materials.
'We don't know how much our composites are going to cost in the next couple months, because, tariffs, inflation, everything else. Patients are also feeling the pinch. So they're less likely to pay for things, because they're also uncertain… so maybe they won't even [get] certain treatments.'
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