Challenges with patients, insurers and the perception of dentistry are among some of the biggest frustrations for dentists at their practices.
Six dentists recently spoke with Becker's to discuss these frustrations.
Editor's note: This response was lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What frustrates you most as a dentist?
Eugene Bass, DMD. Bass Dental (New City, N.Y.): What frustrates me is the lack of consistency in dental insurance reimbursements for certain procedures that we perform. Pulp capping and silver diamond fluoride treatment come to mind. What are commonly held evidenced-based treatment protocols in our profession do not get reimbursement routinely by many insurance plans, leaving sometimes awkward conversations between office managers trying to collect money from the patients for these procedures.
Jim Curlin, DDS. Affordable Dentures & Implants (Fort Smith, Ark.): After 40 years of practicing dentistry, I believe the thing that frustrates me the most is complaining patients. Forty years ago, far more people respected professional people, knowing they were there to help them, were doing their best to care for them and not willfully hurting them. Today, virtually every single person that comes in is in a hurry, has very little respect for your professional training, has very little respect for authority and seems to think you enjoy hurting them. I get so tired of people telling me how much they hate the dentist or trying to make jokes about dentistry. However, I still enjoy dentistry — especially the handful of patients that really appreciate what I do for them — those that tell me I'm the best dentist they've ever been to, [that] I can't retire because they need me and [that] I've never hurt them. Maybe our culture hasn't really changed, but for most people I encounter around my age, it seems they agree that too much of our culture has lost their respect for authority, if not for pretty much anyone or anything.
Huzefa Kapadia, DDS. Kapadia Dental Care (Waterford, Mich.) and Detroit Sterling Dental: One of the most frustrating aspects recently that I've encountered as a dentist is when a patient had an abscess tooth and she kept insisting on treating it with oil pulling. She saw it on TikTok, and she felt it was working. I told her it was not working and she needed antibiotics, which she refused because she felt antibiotics would cause cancer.
Another patient who is a "holistic chiropractor" refused to have her 18-year-old daughter have a root canal on a tooth because she felt root canals cause cancer and insisted on having it extracted. I kept trying to tell her to at least try and save it with a root canal and see if it works, maybe it would change her mind and her philosophy, but to no avail. [It is] very frustrating to deal with so much misinformation and also try and deal with the multitude of other issues going on in the dental world.
Eric Mintalar, DDS. Twin Lake Dentistry (Brooklyn Center, Minn.): My main frustration is dental insurance companies that delay and throw hurdles [by] requiring detailed progress notes and redundant narratives for a procedure that is clearly covered by [patients'] insurance. It is frustrating and it doesn’t appear to be improving.
Alexander Quintner, DMD. Sensitive Care Dental Health Center (Milford, Conn): There is much to enjoy about the practice of dentistry and, unfortunately, much to lament. My greatest frustration as a practice owner, dental lab owner and practitioner lies in the commoditization of our services. The perception that a filling from one dentist equates to a filling from another, or that a cleaning or a crown is a thing degrades what we do to the same level as a pair of socks one can buy off the shelf. This commoditization leads to an overall cheapening of dentistry in the minds of the consumer or patient, the staff members, certainly the insurance companies and, unfortunately, often in the minds of the dentists as well. We perform a service whenever we work on a patient. That service is a therapy, not a thing. If patients could start to see things through that lens, I feel it would add a greater value to our profession and, in doing so, eliminate many of the parts of my day which cause me frustration.
Robert Trager, DDS. Dentist at JFK Airport (New York City): One of our biggest frustrations is patient eligibility and coverage. Many patients, whether new or old, don't know what their dental benefits are, and they will present information regarding their medical [benefits], not their dental benefits. Normally, if we know the patient's employer, we can access their dental coverage and confirm whether they have dental benefits. Many of the patients' plans have changed or expired and the patient claims to have no knowledge of this information. In some cases, patients think that they have dental coverage through their employer, but the patient never signed on for dental benefits.
Another frustration is when we send for EOBs with all the information the insurance carrier needs and the insurance company denies receiving the information or they request the information that had been previously sent to them. During this interim period, patients constantly call inquiring if their work has been approved and upon receipt of the approved treatment, we contact the patient who does not come in or respond in a timely manner for the authorized treatment. What we do find is that the patients will pay out of pocket because they may be going out of town or attending a special event and they can't wait for the necessary approval. To prevent a lot of these frustrations, we access their dental benefits on every recall since benefits are constantly changing. The frustration seems to be prevalent not only in dentistry but all professions. Knowing how to minimize and deal with it is our salvation.