Lower-income workers across Ontario have lower rates of employer-provided dental insurance, according to a new report by the Toronto Foundation. In addition, the community foundation found the problem is more pronounced in Toronto. For example, 53 per cent of employees earning…
A lack of insurance coverage is forcing more than a third of people in Canada’s largest city to go without dental care, a new report says. About 35 per cent of residents don’t have dental insurance, forcing many to avoid the dentist…
As summer is nearing an end, now is the time of year to ask the following question about your year over year status. Are you on a decline that won’t seem to stop? Is the practice surviving with a flat-line plateau…
The demand for dental treatments is rising with an increasingly aging population, but the competition is also growing at a similar pace. In an Internet and mobile centric world, marketing has become affordable, accessible and more effective for an average…
A new study in the Journal of the American Dental Association shows that dentistry’s share of antibiotic use in healthcare has grown significantly. In 1996, dentistry accounted for 6.7% of antibiotic use. By 2013, its share was 11.3%. This results…
DOWNTIME: What happens when patients cancel or just fail to show up? This is especially a problem in hygiene (which patients often skip because, after all to them, “It’s just a cleaning”), but it affects the whole practice. Think of…
Dental hygienists and therapists have been empowered by legislators in Canada, the UK and increasingly in the US to deliver dental services outside of the dental practice. There has been a boom in independent hygiene and this will only grow…
Three news items crossed my desk in the past month. All seem to point to a future for dentistry which features more specialization around managing the cause of poor oral health. One news item was a video interview with a…
Imagine if you shopped at Walmart and there was only one size of sweater, one variety of milk, or when you went to buy cereal, all it carried was Corn Flakes.And you grumbled to yourself that you would like some…
The key to improving patient satisfaction…… People are porous. They tend to absorb and reflect the atmosphere and motions around them. According to Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, we experience approximately 20,000 individual moments in a waking day. Each moment…
What new challenges are you willing to face every day to ensure continued growth and prosperity for your business? Who are the key players on the team that determine the success of your day? These are all unconscious questions that you…
Last month, I posted a blog entitled “How often for dental x-rays?” The thrust of the blog was a new study which showed that visual inspection of the teeth by the dentist was as accurate a method of determining caries…
The easiest and most effective way to highlight your commitment to oral health… Last week, we discussed that the future growth of the hygiene department is based on the foundational truth that oral health is the gateway to overall body…
One silent issue in the dental industry is affordability. Surgical care is so expensive that it has restricted dental visits over the past few years and, in turn, driven down dental incomes by more than 20% since the start of…
Dental hygiene has changed dramatically from a serious shortage of hygienists leading to high wages and a lack of choice for dentists to choose. Today, there is a vast over-supply; competition between job candidates and existing high-wage hygienists must earn…
As of 2015, for the first time, Canada has more people over the age of 65 than under 15. The age group that now encompasses the boomer generation – 50 to 69 – makes up 27 per cent of the…
Two new studies involving older people, show that the following chronic diseases significantly increase the odds of dental decay: cardiovascular disease, rheumatic disease, mood disorders and eating disorders. The connection between diseases, is four or more medications taken regularly; this…
Each day in North America, about 11,000 Baby Boomers retire. Most have no dental plan, most are taking more than 3 medications daily for chronic diseases and thereby are experiencing dry mouth, and most have all of their teeth with…
A new study of the contribution of the periodontal microbe, P. gingivalis, to inflammation of heart tissue is just one more step to justifying closer integration of dental services with medical services. The study reports certain byproducts of P. gingivalis…
Could it happen in your practice? A common topic for our speakers is what dentists misunderstand about embezzlement. Here is our list: MYTH #1 — Embezzlers only steal cash, and it is difficult for thieves to monetize other forms of…
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