Dental care is a vital component of overall health and well-being. However, access to care is a significant challenge for many individuals.
Shifts in patient demographics, payer complexities, and uneven provider distribution are just some of the forces impacting today’s dental workforce. These trends are expected to continue to reshape the dental landscape.
Preventive Care
Preventive care includes oral hygiene and routine dental visits. These essential proactive efforts help patients achieve better dental health and prevent gum disease, tooth decay, and bad breath that can lead to more expensive, complex, and painful treatment options.
A key component of preventive care is patient education to promote healthy habits like brushing and flossing regularly, using toothpaste with the ADA Seal of Acceptance, eating fruits and vegetables rich in vitamin C, and other strategies. Dentists and hygienists also provide information on nutrition, lifestyle habits, and the connection between oral health and overall health.
The CDC recommends teeth cleaning every six months, fluoride treatments, and X-rays to identify and treat early dental problems. Fortunately, these services are often covered by dental individual insurance plans.
Patients prioritizing their oral health benefit from a healthier self-image, less pain, and lower healthcare costs. In the long run, the up-front investment in preventive care will be far lower than a costly repair bill or lengthy rehabilitation for a damaged smile.
Using a learning healthcare system to enable standardized preventive care can improve outcomes and patient engagement. Specifically, using an EHR with Point of Care (PoC) and Outcomes-based Care Planning (OoC) measures allows for identifying and measuring a patient’s caries risk to drive appropriate care with minimal intervention.
Treatment Options
Dental futurists expect new technologies to increase diagnostic accuracy, allowing dentists to monitor patient health better and identify potential problems sooner. This technology will also help reduce the number of visits required by patients. This will lead to improved patient outcomes and satisfaction and cost savings for both patients and practitioners.
In dentistry, artificial intelligence includes diagnosis and treatment planning, image analysis and interpretation, predictive analytics, virtual reality simulations for patient education, and dental robotics. AI makes it easier for patients to communicate with their dentists and understand their treatment options. This helps to reduce patient anxiety and discomfort during appointments.
Another emerging trend is teledentistry. This technology allows patients to visit their dentists virtually, eliminating the need for a physical office. This can be particularly helpful for those living in rural areas with limited access to care.
Augmented Reality (AR) is also making an impact in dentistry. You might be most familiar with it through Snapchat, which uses it to superimpose dog face filters on your guilt-trip selfies. However, it’s also used in dental training to allow students to practice their procedures on mannequins while receiving instant feedback on their performance. This technology can also improve the overall patient experience by enabling them to visualize their teeth in a calming landscape.
Payment Options
Many dental offices need help to balance profit and service, especially when they have staffing models that incentivize dentists on a commission basis for sales or procedure volume. A new generation of tech tools, like Adit, that help streamline workflows with built-in data analytics on everything from staff productivity to ad campaign effectiveness can help dental offices make smarter decisions about how they operate.
In addition, patients will have new access to better and cheaper preventive care thanks to recent innovations in dentistry. For example, digital impression scanning technology will allow patients to check their mouths for quick and accurate impressions, eliminating the need for uncomfortable gum-molding trays. Meanwhile, CAD/CAM software can streamline a dental procedure that used to take weeks, making it quicker and easier for patients.
The coronavirus pandemic has also changed the landscape of oral health, as many people lack jobs or money to spend on elective services, including dentistry. Some will forgo visits until financial stability; others may consider dental care unnecessary.
These factors will influence whether a shortage or surplus exists in the future. However, a few factors point to an eventual surplus:
- Rising dental school tuition.
- Increased patient demand for esthetic services.
- The potential for technological advancements that can reduce the number of visits or treatment time.
Technology
New technology is making dental care more efficient, safer, and accessible. Among the most promising developments are digital tools that allow dentists to quickly and accurately diagnose patients’ oral health problems and take steps to prevent them from recurring in the future.
For example, intraoral cameras provide a clearer image of a patient’s teeth than the mirror or naked eye can. They can also detect cracks and cavities in a tooth before they’re visible on an X-ray, preventing unnecessary radiation exposure for patients.
Other digital innovations are improving communication between dentists and their patients. For instance, a patient can use an app to send images to a dentist, receive a diagnosis, and schedule a follow-up visit all in one place. This allows patients in remote areas or at-risk populations to get timely treatment and improves access to dentistry.
Moreover, advances in artificial intelligence are helping to make dentistry more efficient and cost-effective. In addition to using algorithms to find revenue streams and demographic data for marketing purposes, AI can help dental professionals form better personalized care plans for their patients.
In addition, new software platforms allow dental offices to streamline operations with all-in-one solutions for project management, appointment scheduling, and billing. This reduces administrative costs and helps dentists focus on the intricate, challenging procedures that require their expertise.
