Uber’s Message for Dental Care

Partners In Prevention 1The March 3, 2016 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine has a provocative article called “Uber’s message for healthcare”. The thrust of this article is summarized below by the Kaiser Foundation:

Unreliable service, inconvenience, uncomfortable surroundings, and high prices make customers unhappy, and given the opportunity, they will go elsewhere. Uber, Silicon Valley’s response to the shortcomings of urban taxi and limousine services, has managed to upend an established industry by offering an appealing alternative. Uber’s technology-enabled incursion into a highly regulated market suggests that if consumers gain enough from a new solution, it can overcome powerfully entrenched economic and political interests. Is U.S. health care ripe for disruption by a medical Uber?”

When it comes to dental services, we shouldn’t be worried about being disrupted because of inconvenience and uncomfortable surroundings.

But what about reliability and high prices? Are our customers happy about these aspects of our services?

Seems not. The US Federal Reserve Board reports that amongst all healthcare services, dentistry is the most unaffordable. 1 in 4 adults needing to go to the dentist don’t because it is too expensive. And we know from ongoing surveys in the dental practice waiting room, that 1 in 3 have recurrent oral health problems.

Dental science now understands better than ever, who has poor oral health and why. And dental technologies respond accordingly. Those who embrace these technologies do so because they are a better way of delivering care, and because the customer (the patient) wants them too. And those who don’t, are rendered with a proposition to their community which is out of touch and unaffordable.

For more, please visit: http://partnersinprevention.ca/ubers-message-for-dental-care/.

By: Ross Perry
SOURCED: Partners In Prevention – www.partnersinprevention.ca

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