More than 100 million Americans can’t afford a visit to the dentist, resulting in preventable diseases, bankruptcy and sometimes even death. Poor children are especially at risk — many dentists won’t see children on Medicaid because there’s no profit margin. One in four children have untreated tooth decay, now the most common chronic illness among […]
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Dr. Bill Calnon: Why Dentistry Needs More Prevention, Not More Treaters
by PBS June 10, 2016Is there a strict line between teeth and the rest of the body? There is distinct correlation between oral health and systemic or full-body health, especially in terms of poor oral conditions being very interrelated with diabetes, with cardiovascular disease and many other diseases. … Would it be better if dentistry and the rest of […]
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Aspen Dental CEO Bob Fontana: “We’re Big Advocates for the Patient”
by explainingmedicine June 10, 2016So you started in the dental business coming out of business school. And this was about what time frame? So I got done with school in 1991 and went to work for a company called Upstate Dental in Syracuse, N.Y., and worked there for about three or four years. And in 1991, the idea of […]
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Dr. Frank Catalanotto: Why The ADA Is Wrong About Access To Dental Care
by PBS June 10, 2016Out of curiosity, how did you become so fervent about this issue? I was a typical middle-class kid who didn’t understand that dental access problems were a serious problem in the early part of my career. But in 1985 I moved to San Antonio … and I got to spend two weeks on a border […]
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Watch Dollars and Dentists, FRONTLINE’s investigation into the the flaws in our dental system. A trip to the dentist’s office may instill a sense of dread, but for the majority Americans, access to care is rarely an issue. For roughly one-third of the population, though, finding a dentist can seem next to impossible. The problem […]
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Dental Professionals Speak Out About America’s Care Crisis
by explainingmedicine June 10, 2016Dental professionals from across the country are reacting to last night’s Dollars and Dentists, expressing concerns about — and offering solutions to — the dental coverage gaps in their communities. Here’s a sampling of the Tweets, Facebook comments and reactions we received on our website: Sean Nickens commented on our site about a unique partnership […]
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How The Supreme Court’s Ruling Affects Dental Care
by explainingmedicine June 10, 2016Long overlooked as a secondary aspect of health care, dental care is an important element of overall health, experts say. But as we reported this week in Dollars and Dentists — which you can watch here — the high cost of care keeps more than 100 million Americans out of the dentist’s chair — and […]
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Why Is It So Hard for Doctors to Talk to Patients About Death?
by PBS June 10, 2016Dr. Atul Gawande just wanted to give a patient some hope. But he ended up saying something he would regret. In FRONTLINE’s new film Being Mortal, Gawande remembers treating Sara Monopoli, a woman who was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer at 34, in the ninth month of her pregnancy. After giving birth to a […]