In countries such as India, where there is literally no specific dental insurance scheme, introduction of such schemes will have certain advantages. With increasing dental manpower and poor urban-rural dentist distribution, insurance schemes may offer better choices for a budding dentist. This would increase better avenues for young dentists - both in urban and rural areas. At the same instance, the standard of care will be increased. On the contrary, unnecessary treatments and options may be used on patients. Is dental insurance a viable option to create and sustain the profession of dentistry?
It is indeed a very thoughtful question which has been in the minds of dental professionals both for the sake of patient being able to afford costly treatment and also the dentist not being hesitant to give all treatment options to the patient.
I believe that in India dental insurance will be the growing industry in the years to come....it has infact started as i know of a plan in apollomunich which gives dental insurance upto Rs 5000 yearly in OPD setting.
Not very specific for the treatment in dentistry as are the cases so specified in medical insurance.
But i hope that this will soon be the opportunity for insurance companies to extend the list of dental procedures.
We can hope for the best when considering our patients and for our fraternity as a whole.
Dental insurance represents a very broad set of options. Getting the incentives for the patient and the practitioner will be key to assure that people know their opportunity to get care, where and when to get it, and without a large out of pocket cost. For the practitioner, trying to incentivize practitioners to bring a patient to maintenance level, where the active disease is under control, without encouraging over treatment will be very important. Excellent topic, good luck with the implementation.
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