Are you licensed to masticate?
From what I understand, hygienists currently only need to complete a 2-year program after high school to work in a dental office. Although the curriculum that is being proposed to train advanced dental hygiene practitioners (ADHPs) is being touted as a Master's program, applicants don't need to have earned a Bachelor's degree before enrolling.
Thanks for the info, but I was asking about the frequency of these procedures, not their cost.
Also, under some of the proposals that are popping up in various states, ADHPs would be able to perform fillings and simple extractions, so those should be included in the Hygienist's column as well.
True, but your average ADHP isn't going to be graduating with >$300,000 in debt, so he/she will likely be able to afford to offer these procedures at a discounted rate.
Nope, the average ADHP is projected to have somewhere around 100-125k in debt. Given what an "average" hygienist makes, it is also theorized that the ADHP will have an "expected" earnings of about 100k a year, which would allow them to be able to repay their loan obligations, and live a "normal" lifestyle. From a practice management standpoint with what overhead typically runs, that ADHP will need to produce 200k (very low end number, very low overhead) to 300k+ to make him/her self sufficient and not have to rely on government aid to remain open.
As for him/her being able to "afford" to offer procedures at a discounted rate, maybe they'll choose to, maybe they won't?? That's the autonomy of a dental practice, you can choose what you want to charge (of course things like market demand will influence things).
The biggest issue that I personally have with any mid level provider concept out there right now, isn't about some new level of practitioner and their ability to perform a procedure in a safe and quality way, but with the grandiose idea that many a legislator and backer of whatever midlevel provider model you want seems to have that a midlevel provier will suddenly cure the access problem (if there is indeed actually an access problem). No matter how hard any legislator tries, short of them declaring martial law and instituting dental care in the style the the military currently does where going to the dentist is mandatory, not a choice, there will never be 100% of the population receiving dental care, even if it is totally free to them. This concept seems lost on those trying to institute a 100% access plan, that UTILIZATION of care won't be 100%!
If people trying to improve access to care would be realistic and say that if we could get utilization to be say 60-65% (even for the "free" medicaid population its still below (and often well below) 50% nationwide) that would actually have them focusing on using the LIMITED pool of resources (read a $$ to provide care) on actualy providing care, rather than planning on ways to try and get that 1/3rd of the population that just won't seek out care no mattter what! Take that money and put it towards making the fees that medicaid reimburses providers be a realistic fee (in many cases that means raising the fees to the point where it actually covers the overhead the provider incurs for that procedure/visit). This was done in my home state of CT about 3 years ago, and suddenly the number of medicaid provider dentists statewide went from less than 100 to over 1200, and for medicaid kids (age 21 and under in CT) multiple research firms and the state department of health have determined that at just under 50% utilization rate, that we have one of the top 3 utilization rates in the country and that there is no longer an access "problem" in CT.
Any rational midlevel discussion HAS to include this concept of UTILIZATION of care, not just "access" to care.
