Efficiency and Quality in Dental Medicine

Dear colleagues,

Quality of care and efficiency of care are two matters that have not received a great deal of attention in dental medicine. Private practitioners are incentivized to deliver efficient and high-quality care to maximize profits and bring return customers. However, all dentists know that less than adequate work can still last a long time. Imperfect margins, inadequate esthetics, overhangs, and under-fills can last many years in some patients. There is no true reward for high-quality or highly-efficient care in dental medicine.

The predominant reimbursement model in the dental profession is fee-for-service, which rewards only volume. Moreover, prevention is not reimbursed as much as intervention and research has demonstrated that fee-for-service models subconsciously (or consciously) incentivize us to treat aggressively rather than conservatively [1]. In fact, even the World Health Organization reports that fee-for-service results in “overservicing” because neither doctor nor patient have any incentive to reduce costs [2].

As a result of this, our profession may give less regard to efficiency and quality than peers in medicine, for whom income is affected by these outcomes. My vision for this Special Issue is to publish articles that demonstrate measureable improvements in efficiency and/or quality of patient care that can be adapted by other practices and clinics in the dental profession. Although there is currently no direct financial incentive for high-quality or highly-efficient care, this is a goal our profession must unrelentingly pursue. As more research demonstrates that oral health is linked to systemic health [3], it is critical to the health of our patients that we deliver excellent dental care.

We would like to invite you to consider submitting articles to this Special Issue of TDJ entitled, “Efficiency and Quality in Dental Medicine.” Articles published are publicly available to the dental community and TDJ is indexed in PubMed, with full-text archiving in PubMed Central and high visibility (ISSN 2304-6767, https://www.mdpi.com/journal/dentistry).

References

1. Nguyen L.L., Smith A.D., Scully R.E., Jiang W., Learn P.A., Lipsitz S.R., Weissman J.S., Helmchen L.A., Koehlmoos T., Hoburg A., Kimsey L.G.. Provider-Induced Demand in the Treatment of Carotid Artery Stenosis: Variation in Treatment Decisions Between Private Sector Fee-for-Service vs Salary-Based Military Physicians. JAMA Surg. 2017, 152, 565-572. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5831423/
2. World Health Organization (WHO). Health System Financing. WHO: Geneva, Switzerland; 2010. p. 72–5. http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/44371/9789241564021_eng.pdf;jsessionid=24107EA385266474B5057415497B4893?sequence=1
3. Jeffcoat M.K., Jeffcoat R.L., Gladowski P.A., Bramson J.B., Blum J.J. Impact of Periodontal Therapy on General Health: Evidence from Insurance Data for Five Systemic Conditions. Am J Prev Med. 2014, 47, 166–174. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749379714001536?via=ihub)

Dr. Romesh Nalliah
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Dentistry Journal is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Efficiency
• Health Economics
• Patient Safety
• Prevention
• Public Health
• Quality
• Quality Assurance
• Quality Improvement