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From the article:
"These people often end up in emergency rooms instead of at a dental office, says author and health care activist Wendell Potter. The Pew Center on the States estimated that in 2009, more than 830,000 visits to emergency rooms were for preventable dental conditions. This was a 16% increase from 2006."
16% increase in 3 years?
I wonder if the skyrocketing percentage of the population addicted to pain meds (both rx and illegal such as heroin) is related to this in any way. Maybe drug seekers have realized that because ER physicians aren't trained in oral health, they can feign terrible tooth pain and get a few rx pain pills (along with orders to see a dentist during regular business hours), at least if there is no dentist on call for that hospital. Just a thought.
Also, this article assumes that the population that goes to the ER with dental pain would have gone to a dentist for regular preventive care if there were one nearby. How do we know that these people aren't just of the school of thought that if they aren't in pain, they don't want to waste their money at a dentist's office? This would be a separate issue not related to a shortage of dentists.
Not accusations, and not blame, just wondering if these possibilities have been ruled out before everyone jumps on the "there's a shortage, we need midlevels" train. I think what we really need is better reimbursement rates and Medicare/Medicaid coverage, along with more funding for programs like NHSC (or lower tuition of course, but as long as the federal govt is profiting off the student loan interest, that's extremely unlikely).
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