Dear ADA: Enough with the 'wait and see'!

Editor's note: Helaine Smith's column, The Mouth Physician, appears regularly on the DrBicuspid.com advice and opinion page, Second Opinion.

Once again the ADA and its mentality have lowered our profession to the status of tooth plumbers (versus mouth physicians). This time it is the academy's "wait and see" approach to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Where was the ADA in educating us about the nationwide health information network that the rest of the country and other industries are so in tune with? If you Google this and related topics, the hits are in the tens of thousands. This is a huge project, and the fact that dentistry was not even considered during congressional meetings as a part of our healthcare system is extremely upsetting.

Where was the ADA during the initial meetings held by the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology? Why wasn't more feedback given to this committee on how dentistry can -- and should -- be included? Other specialty group providers, such as dermatology and oncology, have advocated for inclusion. The next certification for electronic health records will include disciplines such as behavioral health, long-term care, and eye care. Dentistry is not even on the radar, but behavioral health is next in line?

Technology is here to stay. It is becoming the standard of care. It is costly for solo practitioners to invest in upgrading their office to practice modern dentistry. It is costly to modernize dental offices with software and digital radiography. But if you had kept up incrementally with the changes over the past 10 years, it would not now be so overwhelming -- financially and mentally.

The phrase I heard the luminaries of dentistry say years ago concerning the rapid technology advances that were beginning to occur then was, "If you do not jump on board, you will be left behind." This prediction has now come to fruition.

There is a public demand to practice modern dentistry and use technology, but the ADA does a great job of burying its head in the sand and assuming all dentists want to sit back and let the world pass us by.

The ADA perpetuates the public's perception that the oral cavity is not part of their overall health and that we have no right in knowing about their overall health. When will the ADA look beyond single tooth restorations and realize we are mouth physicians!

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