Expanding scope-of-practice for dental hygienists, assistants and therapists, updating the dental insurance and reimbursement space and strengthening the dental workforce pipeline are just a few of the policy changes that dentists and dental service organization executives want to see implemented.
Dentistry has yet to build the allied health workforce infrastructure medicine created around physician assistants and nurse practitioners, leaving structural gaps in the dental workforce
Executives said that the current dental insurance system is still built for procedures over patients, and reimbursements haven’t kept pace with the cost of delivering care.
Source: The policy changes that would overhaul dentistry / Becker’s Dental