Monday, April 1, 2013

Editorial Sample from Matt Wenz

Wenz:
"Brush twice a day for two minutes," this phrase is all too familiar but seldom followed.  The general public does not like listening to their dentists bits of wisdom, so isn't it understandable that the dentists would not like to listen to someone scheming their lives?  No one likes to be manipulated but that is exactly what insurance companies are doing to dentists.  Insurance providers are taking over the dental industry by pressuring dentists to agree to contracts that promise the dentist business, but in return the insurance company regulates the dentist's prices.  Sounds great right?  Getting guaranteed business what can be better that that in this economy?
While this may sound like a great idea, it isn't.  In fact this is going to kill all the perks involved with the dental field.  By capitulating to the terms of an insurance company, a dentist is cemented into a contract where the insurance company sets prices at their leisure with no input from the dentists that work for them.  These prices range anywhere from 10% - 35% less than the average fees for an out of network dentist, a dentist not within the binding contracts of an insurance company.  When the overhead of the dentist is 60% there is practically no income margin.  This will be detrimental to the dental industry.  
While this will hurt the dental industry it sounds like a great deal for the patients, right? 
Wrong again.  When the margin of profit decreases the dentist will do anything they can to cut costs to increase their profit; this will lead to a dentists using cheaper materials in order to lower their overhead.  They will make any cuts they see fit in order to make up for the money lost by being a network dentist.  This will precipitate to poor customer experiences and inferior service as opposed to a dentist not under a binding contract.  But why do dentists have to commit to these insurance plans?  With new dentists coming out of college without any way to drum up business they will have to resort to these insurance contracts to stay above the water.  Eventually mostly all dentists will be so starved for business that they will have to commit to work for an insurance company.  Dentists working for insurance companies is a horrible idea and it will have detrimental effects in the long run.


vs. Krugman

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