Interview with Dr. Edwards

Why is dental care a separate expense from health care?

In my opinion, I believe its a separate entity just because that's how it has been structurally set up. I don't believe that should be the case. Insurance for a lot of time dictates that. A lot of things are insurance driven which I don't love. A lot of patients tend to have either all the insurances or go insurance free and pay out of pocket. And if a patient doesn't have the insurance for that, like you said Omar, they tend to not go in for care. 

How have advancements improved outcomes in care for patients?

I think there's a lot of dental research that happens. The composite used for fillings have been researched to figure out a best way to put it together and make it a lot better, stronger, cleaner, and more lasting for the patient. I believe it all has to do with the research going on. There's a whole another area for advancements with scanning and doing digital dentistry which is a whole another level of advancements. Where the scan could be sent to a lab via email and make the process a lot faster. 

How do you think costs will be impacted by these advancements in technology to affect accessibility and affordability, especially to those in low-income communities? 

The advancements in technology are able to make things move faster, and when appointments finish faster, there is more dental office time in terms of more patients being able to be seen. If you see more patients, then you have possibility to see those underserved patients. There is usually a loss for dentists when they have medic aid patients because they don't get that reimbursement needed to keep up with operating costs. So dentists will tend to either overbook or pack their schedule with patients to sometimes break even or make a profit. They know they won't make a profit because of insurance reimbursement. I run a private practice and medic aid patients tend to pay me 25$ on the 100$ when regular insurance could pay me up to 80$ on that same 100$. So if I had only served medic aid, I would have to do triple the work to sometimes break even and make money myself. 

Can you discuss some programs or initiatives that can or already be implemented in low-income communities to improve access to dental care?

One thing that we are doing that is done at a lot of different dental schools. What happens is the dental students go on rotation and spend a couple weeks at a site in the Upper Peninsula, rural areas, FQHC (Federally Qualified Health Care Center) and provide dental care there. They have supervising dentists and the students do whatever is scheduled from fillings to extractions. I think in general dental schools do a good job in introducing that problem and situation to the dental students so that even after they graduate, they know there is a need for that care for that population

What are some of the barriers you witnessed in your patient population when it comes to accessing dental care?

Medic aid is one of the big barriers in terms of insurance. The dental school is the key provider for that. There are a number of dentists who will care for medic aid kid patients because they care for them in the community. I believe a kid for medic aid is a  kid under 21. And even though reimbursement rates are low, what they will do is take a certain number of medic aid patients and cap it on top of that. They try to balance it out with both private insurance and state provided insurance. The reimbursement rates is the barrier for dentists in this case. There are still out of pocket money owed to the dentist from the patient so that's a barrier for many patients on Medic aid. 

How have improvements in the treatment affected the patient's comfort and satisfaction with the outcome? Does the feedback you receive from patients impact the care you give, and how so?

Yeah, I get all the time from patients giving remarks on not remembering how painful it was or how it used to be based off previous experiences. Going back to advancements in technology that we were talking about earlier, the treatments go a lot faster. Having procedures be faster, and able to last longer gives patients a extreme sense of comfort and overall, I think they are very happy with the care they receive. And I accredit that to the technology and research that has been done over the years.