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Dentists as Oral Physicians: The Overlooked Primary Health Care Resource

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Abstract

The United States is currently experiencing a primary care shortage. One solution to improving health care is to increase the utilization of existing health care providers, particularly dentists, an opportunity that has been largely ignored. By employing mid-level providers for less complex procedures to deliver more accessible dental care at lower cost, dentists can redistribute tasks to their office workforce. They can then serve as oral physicians who can provide limited preventive primary care, including screening for chronic diseases, while continuing to oversee all dental care, whether provided by dentists or non-dentists. Thus, they could improve the health of the US population as well as increase access to dental care at lower cost, while partially alleviating the primary care shortage by filling a need for the screening aspects of primary care.

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Acknowledgments

Partially funded by a grant from the Milton Fund of Harvard University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Developmental Biology, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, 190 Longwood Ave., Boston, MA, USA

    Donald B. Giddon

  2. Cambridge Health Alliance, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Brian Swann

  3. Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA, USA

    Brian Swann & R. Bruce Donoff

  4. Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Ruth Hertzman-Miller

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  1. Donald B. Giddon
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Correspondence to Donald B. Giddon.

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Giddon, D.B., Swann, B., Donoff, R.B. et al. Dentists as Oral Physicians: The Overlooked Primary Health Care Resource. J Primary Prevent 34, 279–291 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10935-013-0310-7

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