Teledentistry, the Latest Health Care Trend

It may be the latest trend in health care delivery services, but telemedicine inherently makes sense. Teledental is less intuitive. While hard to conceptualize, teledentistry is a real program, and it's coming to a state near you.

“At its core, teledentistry is a way to provide affordable preventive care to the public, particularly low-income individuals,” said Dr. Terry O'Toole, vice chair of the American Dental Association Council on Dental Practice. “It costs so much less to prevent a problem in the long run than it does to pay for major procedures such as root canals.”

According to a study conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, dental out-of-pocket expenses constituted 27 percent of overall health care out-of-pocket costs. The average for dental out-of-pocket costs was $873. Dental out-of-pocket costs exceeded the average amount of prescription out-of-pocket costs, which were $700.

Unlike telemedicine where there is no face-to-face patient interaction, teledentistry allows hygienists and dental assistants to perform procedures while supervised by a “virtual dentist,” O'Toole said. The hygienists and dental assistants work from temporary clinics that are set up in schools, community centers or nursing homes and perform routine procedures such as cleanings or fillings.

O'Toole said teledentistry can take a variety of forms, including live video feeds, sharing images and patient information over a secure electronic communications system, and remote patient monitoring.

The technique was developed in the 1990s by the U.S. military to treat troops who did not have direct access to a licensed dentist, according to the U.S. Army Center of Military History. High-resolution digital images taken in the field could be sent to a specialist for review. They would then make a diagnosis and a necessary procedure would be performed by a general doctor at the nearest base.

California became the first state to launch a teledentistry program in 2014 when Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill into law that would require Medi-Cal, the state's insurance program for the poor, to pay for dental services delivered electronically, according to a news release from the governor's office. The legislation took effect on Jan. 1, 2015.

The legislation was the byproduct of efforts by Dr. Paul Glassman, a dentist at the University of the Pacific in San Francisco. He started the Virtual Dental Home demonstration project to prove that teledentistry could increase access to care and end up saving the state money. His efforts were successful, and in 2015, he testified before Congress that telemedicine services should be covered by dental benefits plans at the same level as if the services were being delivered in person.

“As long as the dentist is licensed in the state the patient resides in, it should be covered. If we treat the root of the problem and prevent decay, we're going to be saving people money in the long run,” Glassman said.

Sarah Sipek is a Workforce associate editor. Comment below, or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

Tags: teledentistry, telemedicine

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