“There”™s been a historical chasm between medical and dentistry for decades,” Norton L. Travis, CEO of ProHEALTH Dental, told the Business Journal. His organization recently expanded its clinical collaboration with Westchester and Fairfield County health care provider Westmed Medical Group to a second Westchester location.
“It”™s as though the mouth is not part of the body, and our model and our mission is to put the mouth back in the body and have the public recognize that there are a lot of bad things that can go on in your mouth that clinical studies have proven over and over again are either causing or exacerbating clinical conditions,” Travis said.
ProHEALTH Dental now has two locations in Westchester branded as WestDental in the clinical affiliation with Westmed. First to open was at 244 Westchester Ave. in White Plains and the newest, operational as of Jan. 4, is at 194 Market St. in the Ridge Hill center in Yonkers.
ProHEALTH Dental and Westmed remain separate legal entities, each solely responsible for the care of its patients. ProHEALTH Dental has similar clinical affiliations with Mount Sinai Hospital, CareMount Medical, Riverside Medical Group in Northern New Jersey and ProHEALTH Care. ProHEALTH Dental was described as operating 13 offices and looking to expand its presence, including in Westchester and Fairfield.
“This is a clinical affiliation so we become the service line for Westmed as the oral health team. Separate organizations but affiliated through an agreement. Basically both parties recognize the importance of working together,” Travis said. “What we”™re hoping out of this is first and foremost that as a Westmed Medical patient you become better informed about why having proper oral health is important whether you go to the WestDental office or whether you go to your own dentist.”
Travis said that efforts have been underway to convince the federal government”™s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which controls the government health care programs upon which so many people rely, to make financial coverage for dental examinations and procedures routinely available.
“The absence of dental insurance is no question a serious impediment to people going to the dentist. Maybe half the population has dental insurance and even when they do its coverage is not the same as medical insurance. It”™s frequently limited in terms of absolute dollars,” Travis said. “We also do offer to patients who don”™t have health insurance a discount program so that the care that they receive is substantially discounted from what the normal dental fees would be in a private dental office.”
Travis said his company has been working with what he described as “a very significant coalition to try to convince the government to add dentistry as covered care under the Medicare program.
“Right now Medicare does not cover dentistry. If we can get the government to see the merit, and there are studies that show if people take care of their mouths their overall cost of medical care goes down dramatically because they”™re not getting increased symptoms of their underlying chronic diseases and they”™re not running to the emergency room when they”™ve got a toothache. If that happens, the private insurers tend to follow what the government does so we think there will be a piggyback effect.”
Travis said he didn”™t think a dramatic change in government thinking was going to happen overnight but he thought there might be incremental acceptance of the concept over the next year or so.
Travis pointed out that the office of the U.S. Surgeon General put out a report in 2000 on issues affecting oral health. A “spotlight” update to the report, that had been scheduled for release in 2020, is now expected to be released early in 2021.
Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams, who was due to be replaced by incoming President Joe Biden”™s pick of Dr. Vivek Murthy, has acknowledged the tie-in between dental health and overall health.
In early December, he participated in an Oral Health Seminar under the auspices of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. ProHEALTH Dental is a member of Harvard”™s initiative to Integrate Oral Health and Medicine which sponsors both research and clinical activities for physicians and dentists to work together to enhance the health of their patients.
“We know that oral health is integral to our overall health, as well as the health of our communities and our nation,” Adams said, explaining that the upcoming report update will “focus on the integration of oral health and primary care and workforce issues, the relationship between oral health and substance abuse disorders, the opioid epidemic, high risk behaviors such as smoking and vaping, and emerging technologies and promising science that is transforming oral health and health delivery.”
Adams told those participating in the virtual seminar, “As dental professionals, you”™re trusted sources of clinical and health related advice; critical team members, with unique roles in answering patients”™ questions, providing and translating scientific information, and more. But what I want you to understand, is that as critical as health care is, overall health, and especially oral health, actually begins at home. And it”™s a vicious cycle, what we call social determinants. Things like a living wage, clean drinking water, housing security, they contribute to medical determinants. Chronic diseases such as diabetes, periodontal disease and hypertension are especially common in people of color.”
When the National Institutes of Health announced in the Federal Register that an update to the 2020 Surgeon General”™s Report on Oral Health was being prepared, it said, “Many Americans continue to experience unnecessary pain and complications from poor oral health that adversely affect their well-being, adding substantial economic and social costs.
“As there have been some successes in integrating oral health into the broader health care system in the United States, many still view oral health care as a supplemental benefit and not a priority benefit. This separate view of oral health negatively impacts our nation in a variety of ways. including the increasing use of emergency departments at substantial cost to treat dental pain and related conditions.”
“Our message is really to share our mission, which is to break down the barrier between medicine and dentistry to get people healthy,” Travis said, pointing out that the WestDental tag line is “Put Your Health Where Your Mouth Is.”
