The phrase above is one of the leading search terms that brings people to this blog. Dental team members can tell you many stories of patients presenting with abscesses. The great majority of these patients are going to the dentist to get out of pain but many of them are also going to the hospital emergency departments for relief.
Our access to care issue certainly influences the oral health of the population. Check out these numbers:
2006 calcuations: 141, 879 non-specialist practicing dentists (current ADA stats)
Current population: 305,759,036 (taken from the US Census clock)
Quick non-scientific conclusion: 2155 patients per dentist – a huge patient load
When patients call and tell us that this tooth has been bothering them for years, it’s really hard to not be annoyed. The script for the painkillers is obtained and the appointment for the extraction or root canal therapy is made. But then they don’t show up. Is it because they saw the price and got spooked? Is it because we are only one on a list of dentists that get called for pain pills?
Front office team members have pretty good radar about which patients are ’shoppers.’ Sometimes I wonder though if my radar is tuned a little too high. Am I too quick to judge that this patient is probably just going to have it extracted and not save it? We make many assumptions about why people don’t seek care.
I know it’s early for a New Year’s resolution but one of mine will be to spend extra time talking to patients in pain. Even if they don’t get treatment at our office perhaps the next time they hear that their overall health is at stake, they’ll listen. There’s too many people searching this term – too many people that are living with chronic pain. What they need is treatment combined with increased dental education. Those of us in dental offices are in the perfect position to hand out both of these items.
