Our ASDA chapter (Midwestern) has worked very hard with the ADA and ASDOH's ASDA chapter to kill the dental therapist bill in Arizona. We succeeded in killing it with an 8-1 vote during a sunrise session in the Arizona legislature.
In Minnesota, therapists earn a Master's degree. In Arizona, the proposal was for a short program that required only a high school diploma.
The ADA is working
very hard to stop dental therapists from expanding to other states. They were voted down in North Dakota recently. They are now allowed to practice in Alaska, Arizona, Ohio, and I believe Vermont. It's possible that more states allow them.
They are billed as a way to provide access to care for underserved communities. The ADA showed the Arizona legislature that of 58 dental therapists licensed in Minnesota over a given period, only 7 of them were working in underserved areas. 51 either did not work in the field, or worked in the Minneapolis / St. Paul area. I am told by a dental therapist that they are required to keep 50% of their patient base as underserved, but she could not tell me how that is enforced or who enforces it.
The therapists brought in a dentist who had employed four therapists on his own. The guy was running a medicaid mill from the sounds of it, and I think the ADA may have pointed that out. Luckily, one of the committee members in the AZ legislature is a practicing dentist and knew all the right questions to ask.
I have seen dental therapists posting on comment feeds about the dental therapy bills throughout the country, and they typically make the following false statements:
"We take the same classes that dentists do."
Not even remotely true:
DDS:
https://www.dentistry.umn.edu/sites/dentistry.umn.edu/files/dds_2016_year_by_year.pdf
Therapist:
https://www.dentistry.umn.edu/sites...d_dh-dt_color_coded_curriculum_overview_1.pdf
"We take the same boards that dentists do."
-They take one portion of the CRDT exam and I am not sure whether that is abbreviated or not. They do not take the NBDE.
"We are dental students."
-Do I need to explain how ridiculous this is?
"We are as good at restorative as dentists."
-Not from what we heard from the dentists in Minnesota who had hired therapists. I would love to hear from some UMN students if they post here still.
I also wonder if dentists practice in Minnesota have found it difficult to compete with a competitor who hires dental therapists for basic restorative.
Of course, the biggest problem with mid-levels is exactly what has happened in medicine. You have mid-level creep, and when you give them an inch they take a mile. It starts with non-surgical extractions and before long they want to do all extractions. It starts with basic restorative and before long they are doing crowns and implants.
The scariest thing is the advanced dental therapists' scope of practice:
http://mn.gov/boards/assets/Adv Dental therapist_tcm21-46115.pdf
They don't take pharm, they don't take biochem or physiology, they have very little science background to speak of. Scary stuff.
I really hope that dental students across the nation will work hard to keep these folks out of their states to. It is a threat to patient welfare and to our profession and it provides no tangible benefit in reality.
