Yes, Mr Morrison will NOT agree to fund free dental care under Medicare but he is very comfortable handing out $$Billions of taxpayer money to big businesses under JobKeeper who didn’t qualify for the funds. They don’t even have to pay it back. Meanwhile his poor excuse for a Government is driving welfare recipients to suicide over outstanding debts of as little as $1,000.
I guess it is a matter of priorities and we are clearly seeing where his lie!!! 
You are generally seen on the same day if it is an emergency.
Melbourne has a great dental school and clinic. Free - $25 per visit. So popular the wait time is 42 months. Unless is a dental emergency which is likely to mean a tooth pulled. Many community health clinics also provide dental - if you can wait over 42 months to be contacted for an appointment.
Definitely agree that dental costs are worth paying very penny. Also that dental health should be taught at a very young age. A dentist came to our childcare centre in Melbourne regularly. This also stopped the irrational fear of dentists that many have.
Of course basic dentistry should be covered by Medicare but I do not see either political party supporting it.
In the meantime the states funds should be bolstered. I imagine there is a huge need for dental work following the lockdowns in the 2 populous states.
Dental care could be provided by Medicare but then we would need to wait for about ten years before we would have enough dentists to deal with the increased demand for taxpayer-subsidised dental care.
All that Medicare funding would do in the short term is increase the rates dentists and dental specialists like periodontists, orthodontists etc charged.
Private health funds offer extras cover for basic dentistry and it is one of the most used of the services private funds provide.
Why do you think this will be the case, what statistics and or reports are you using to show this is the case? Is this also an admission that the current dental health system is woefully failing the population?
Again how do you know this will be the case? Perhaps with bulk billing and increased patient numbers they may be not needing to increase their rates. If like some Doctors now they could also just use the Medicare rebate to offset some of the cost for the patient.
And because there are so many health funds the cost you pay is inflated because the members need to pay for all the managers, executives, employees, buildings, profits, shareholders and so on. Is it efficient? The funds probably think so, some members might think so I guess. Currently there are limits on many dental services via health funds, some of these limits are lifetime ones as well. As @Gaby notes below they have saved by ditching the extras cover.
Then if we went to a Medicare funded system the cover for basic dental that includes x-rays (most of these are free via Medicare as well if done at a normal x-ray facility), cleans, simple extractions, simple fillings could be easily met at any dentist. Periodontal and Orthodontal work would be similar to Specialist Drs where a referral is needed. For those who don’t want to pay they would go through the public health system which if the rate of the Levy to cover dental went up, the public system would receive extra funding under the Levy arrangements.
About the Extras cover from private health insurance,
FWIW from my experience:
Substantial Premium.
Long waiting periods for new members.
Benefits annual limitations…
I found that my premium was much higher than the benefits I got, and I’ve saved hundreds of dollars a year by dropping out of Extras.
If Medicare covers the cost of dental, there will be a need for more dentists to take care of people who will want dental care and have previously not used it. There are sufficient dentists now to cover the demand. Universities would need to train more dentists but their facilities are designed to accept a certain intake. To increase the intake of dentists, new buildings and fit-out are needed - allow say 3 - 4 years to build them even if the government decided to do that immediately (it won’t). Then the course is about 4 - 6 years and there’s a need for 1 - 2 years of post-graduation practical experience - all up at least 10 years.
If more people want to go to a dentist or a dental specialist, the profession will be able to increase prices beyond the level rebated by medicare, much like the best medical specialists have a gap now when you see them unless you are one of the small number to get bulk-billed. Prices go up when demand exceeds supply. Governments cannot set prices - just the rebates paid.
Health Funds encourage dentists to negotiate an agreed fee in return for becoming approved suppliers to minimise any out of pocket for their members above the rebates they pay the dentist. Not all dentists participate of course but many do. Some people feel they are better off without private health insurance. I prefer not to wait when I need medical or dental attention. Governments keep costs in check by rationing and delays to service. Insurers keep costs in check by negotiating deals with suppliers. I’d rather pay and get it when I need it. Each to their own.
Which indicates a large failure of the health system to address the dental health needs of the population. These needs are just as important as any other medical need, the only difference is that it starts in the mouth which for some reason is seen by some to not be part of the human body and linked to other medical issues.
I still don’t see good proof of why numbers of dentists must increase, or why indeed if there really is a shortfall that we can’t just let them immigrate from other Countries like we do for many other professions including Drs.
The health system responds to demands not needs. That’s politics mixed with policy.
If we were designing a universal health system from scratch, we’d include the mouth as part of the body. That’s a no brainer. But we are where we are not where we would like to be …
There is no huge pool of overseas dentists we can tap. There’s also all these issues about accreditation and certification that occurs whenever we seek to recognise overseas qualifications. It happens with everything from cooks to rocket scientists literally. It would take some years for these rules to be formulated and it often involves a testing regime implemented in Australia to validate the OS qualification.
So, it is unlikely we’d get many more dentists much more quickly than we could train locally by increasing admissions to universities.
As for dentists today, the number of dentists is regulated by the profession and the universities so demand matches supply and supply matches demand in gross terms. Sure, a small increase in demand might be accommodated within existing numbers but that just means dentists earn more. A bigger increase in demand will end up with price rationing - i.e. prices will increase. It’s like gravity - you may not believe in it but you will fall just as hard to the ground as a believer. That’s the market - even communists end up finding market pressures get resolved by market responses regardless of government attempts to stop gravity.
Sure, an autopsy helps work out why someone died but they are still dead, more dead probably, after the autopsy.
Medicare is a universal health care system regardless of income or means. If the issue is dental care for those who cannot afford it, a more directed approach to provide access to dental care will lead to a faster better short term solution. That is the antithesis of medicare but it is the only approach that won’t damage the balance. We already have a number of programs in dental care for vulnerable groups - the aged, people with disabilities, school age children etc - they have grown like topsy with no overarching strategy - just a quick fix for a political pain point.
Good planning requires in depth investigation and consultation not a “brain fart”.
I’d like a unicorn too.
I was left wondering if this was still reliable.
The statistics as of 2019 suggested around 58 FTE dentists per 100,000 Aussies. IE less than 2,000 prospective customers per Dentist. It’s enough to assure 30 minutes chair time for every single Aussie every year ensuring the average Dentist just 20 hours work per week. That would seem to leave plenty of billable time for those special customers who need more than a basic annual clean inspection and tickle.
The ABC crystal ball from 2014 was well informed?
So it would seem we have a glut of dentists, not a dearth as outlined by @gds?
The ABC report from earlier (2013) seems to indicate that many graduates were underemployed, there was a large number of migrant dentists applying and getting registered every year. According to the DA President at the time quite a large glut of dentists in fact.
The Dentists Union got the skilled migration category changed to require Dentists from overseas to be placed in regional areas.
60 FTE dentists per 100,000 population (1 dentist per 1,600 population approx) appears adequate for current levels of demand. An FTE is based on 7.5 hours x 221 days = close to 1,600 roughly which is about an hour per person per year on average. But that isn’t how any medical usage works in real life.
According to the report you provided, 56% of Australians go to a dentist annually. Health funds pay for 31.8 million dental services - and not all services are compensated by health funds - so there’s already a lot of demand with each person covered by a health fund having multiple services on average per year - one or two cleans, an inspection, a review etc.
I doubt there are all these dentists lying around waiting for demand to increase to get back working alongside the chair.
In 2013, according to the ABC, the Dentists Union demanded cuts to University places for dentists. Did that happen? Probably not as changes take more than 8 years to filter through - all those lecturers and professors and facilities can’t just be swapped over to climate studies.
It seems the current system is working pretty well apart from a few tweaks needed at the edges and perhaps some more funding for those in need.
Remember, we fluoridate our water and excoriate sugary foods. That’s probably the big public health response needed.
This immediately reminded me of the calls some years ago by both pharmacists and doctors to reduce uni positions as they clained that the existing practictioners could not make enought money.
The pharmacists claimed that they were scraping by as there was no money in dispensing prescriptions and they were relying on flogging cosmetics to make a profit.
Now it costs more than a million dollars to set up a new pharmacy. if the site is approved, and they pay their employees peanuts.
The doctors did a similar thing calling on the Government to cut uni places as they claimed they could not make a reasonable living.
Whilst waiting at our GP’s clinic recently, I overheard a receptionist tellig a caller that none of their 9 GP’s were currently accepting any new patients.
Perhaps there should be a DentalCare equivalent to MediCare.
Many people are not aware of gingivitis and periodontitis and would not mention bleeding gums to their GP because it’s not regarded as part of their treatment spectrum.
Medicare should have a ‘whole body’ focus for people of all ages so that gum disease can be dealt with early. If periodontitis is not dealt with appropriately it can have serious consequences.
Visits to the Dentist would help but are not the only answer to inflammation of the gums because its common cause is poor dental hygiene.
We can play a big part ourselves in keeping our gums healthy by proper and regular brushing and flossing of our teeth.
As a “senior” with the majority of my own teeth I find it difficult to fund any dental work that may need doing. I have previously been in private health insurance, (starting 1972) but the constant increases and decreasing benefits put a halt to that around six years ago. I live i a regional area with limited medical and dental services and yes…it is bloody inconvenient not being able afford or have basic services in older age!
Welcome @ratbearbella3,
Ditto, except there’s 2 of us from the one budget. With all our own teeth the best way to look after them is regular dental checkups.
Having lived in smaller regional communities, access to a Dentist and Dental care is often a day trip away. It’s never a cheap outing.
A link to some of the history behind why we don’t have dental under Medicare.
Why isn’t dental included in Medicare? Are any parties promising better dental care? - ABC News
