Dental coverage for seniors/disabled | Page 2 | Your stories | Discussion forum

The dentists will join once the CDCP plan becomes just like other dental plans, like the ones from people's employer.

Apparently, the federal government had tried some underhanded things with the dentists behind the scenes and the dentists pushed back. This is from one dentist in April, before the federal government started to smarten up:

Here are some of the reasons why I am encouraging us [dentists] all to say NO to the CDCP:

1. The CDCP is not free for patients, as dentists must balance bills to ensure their dental practice’s economic viability. For example, Manitoba’s established CDCP fee grid is 74% of the MDA 2024 fee guide. The government encourages all dentists not to balance bills [to not bill patients for the remaining 26%]. That means, essentially, we work for free. Why are some provinces reimbursed at a higher percentage? Should not every dentist be reimbursed the same percentage of their provincial fee guides?

2. It doesn’t protect the patient’s choice of dentist. The federal government has created an American-style HMO system where the patient can choose a provider from ‘in-network’ – if your current provider is ‘outside of the network,’ the patient cannot continue to see them and access the CDCP. The government has set us up to be greedy rich dentists who do not help the poor.

3. The administrative burden makes it difficult for patients to get the necessary care and for practices to run efficiently. How does the dental office know the family income to monitor the patient’s remaining balance on the CDCP properly? We must check the Sunlife portal before any treatment to ensure that the patient is eligible for any treatment before it is done or fear that Sunlife (who wants access to our bank accounts) will claw payments back. Sunlife will also have the right to come into our practices and audit us anytime! How did Sunlife become the sole benefactor of this billion-dollar government gift in the first place?
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Norman1 said
The dentists will join once the CDCP plan becomes just like other dental plans, like the ones from people's employer.

Apparently, the federal government had tried some underhanded things with the dentists behind the scenes and the dentists pushed back.

2,000,000 seniors already signed for CDCP. Such large rollout is expected to have some glitches. Tuning the process may be required.

For once, the government did something smart and delayed mass signup till 2025, giving 6+ months to fix issues for smaller group of people.

We must check the Sunlife portal before any treatment to ensure that the patient is eligible for any treatment before it is done or fear that Sunlife will claw payments back.

This complaint is totally ridiculous. Yes, before providing the treatment covered by insurance plan the patient must have an estimate. That estimate must split the cost between what insurance pays and what patient will pay.
Nothing new here.

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I am thinking that unintended side benefit from CDCP will be closing of dental practices that get paid for their services by cash under the table and, perhaps, not even have properly licensed in Canada dentists.
They exist now, because they can provide services cheaper than reputable dental establishment. Their customer base is exactly those who will qualify for maximum coverage under CDCP.

If you ask me, I am all for it.

If someone already know the answer, it will save me researching it.

Question: Is eligibility means tested?

The program must have annual limits that can't be very high, I can't see that on the info. So maybe enough for an exam and cleaning say? I dont qualify , but was thinking if limits are high , where is Canada going to get the money for this?

RetirEd said

Norman1: That means, essentially, we [dentists] work for free.

That's a stretch. Not free, but for regulated amounts. When medical coverage came to Canada, similar complaints were made by medical associations. They eventually realized they were trading their ability to set fees for guaranteed payment on a much larger pool pf patients.

Before that, the medical argument was that doctors could pick their patients and set their fees, and often provided free "pro bono" work. We don't know how many actually did, or how much of it. Or how many deadbeat (or dead) patients the had to write off.

Now, they always get paid.
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So what if they will always be paid? That only makes sense if the guaranteed billings are not far from non-guaranteed ones.

Prince George dentists not signing up for federal dental care program gives this example:

The CDCP fee guidelines are significantly lower than BC fee rates for procedures.

As an example, Foy said in the case of tooth extraction that costs $160, the government fee for that service is only $50, of which the plan would cover only a percentage of that.
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If I were the dentist, I would choose to collect $160 most of the time over $50 all the time!

Yes, the dentist would be working for free if he or she accepts the CDCP rate and has no profit left after paying the expenses. Just like some women end up working for free when their salary just covers the child care costs.

Initially, I could not understand what all the fuss was about. Why would the dental providers not accept CDCP? Just another dental plan through SunLife, no?

Turns out it isn't. Misleading claims about it being "free dental" with 100% coverage. US-style HMO setup restricted to certain providers. Behind the scenes "encouragement" to not bill patients the difference to keep up a facade that "free dental" was actually delivered!

Federal government and politicians should just cut the BS! Just be honest and tell people they are getting 70% to 85% dental coverage, like an employer dental plan, and leave it at that.

And cut the behind the scenes nonsense with the dentists and hygienists. It takes some gall to ask someone to accept $50 for a procedure that is normally $160 so that one can say "free dental".

Fortunately, a good chunk of the BS will be going away after July 8.

Norman1: It's still not "working for free."

Some (I have no info on how many) dentists either charge more than private insurance benefits cover or (as I have seen myself) charge uninsured patients more than the fee schedules covered by those private insurers.

If I were the dentist, I would choose to collect $160 most of the time over $50 all the time!

But dentists still have the option of charging the $160 to patients who are willing to pay, and do not have to accept $50 patients who are not. Unlike federal Medicare, there's no limitation on private billing. We do know that Canadian dentists have had difficulty filling their appointment books in recent years, so those lower payments - as well as the privately-insured patients who are subject to top-up billing - are likely going to be welcome.

And the multitudes of patients who have neglected their dental health due to poverty will be healthier and less of a strain on Medicare.

Your dentist may be busy. Mine only bothers to schedule three days a week to save money on office staff. All the dental offices I know of in my neighbourhood (six) have posted signs saying they welcome new patients.

On the other hand, many more may have become (or are becoming) busy as the plan allows those who have not been able to afford dental care for years start coming in...

We know the outcome. The government will regulate fees because the money tree is already out of money. So dentists will regulate service. Its a version of shrinkflation. They’ll use cheaper equipment, materials and staff and spend less time.

With dentistry, the effects of “free” are literally “in your face”. Its hard to not notice that Brits have much worse teeth than North Americans. And hard to find a dentist in the UK. Same as with family doctors in Canada. We are copy-pasting British system so we know the future.

Alexandre said

mordko said
We know the outcome. The government will regulate fees because the money tree is already out of money. So dentists will regulate service. Its a version of shrinkflation. They’ll use cheaper equipment, materials and staff and spend less time.

I am not eligible for CDCP yet. I went to my dentist and paid about $250 for cleaning.
I took a person on CDCP to that same dentist, they have got same $250 estimate, but paid $25 out of pocket. I assume CDCP covered $225.

I don't see how that will incentivize my dentist to cut quality of their service.

I am in Ontario. Perhaps, in provinces where government tries to convince dentists not to charge the difference, that would be the case.

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Still, thanks for that. To add to my previous recommendation, if your dentist does charge very modest out of pocket fee for CDCP covered dental procedure, that means they won't be reducing quality of their work to make their service "100% free of charge."  

We can pick individual cases but in the end there will be a massive pressure to cut costs and the service will become harder to come by. “ It is worth noting that the UK has lower numbers of dentists per head of population compared with many other European countries. The UK has 5.3 dentists per 10,000 of the population compared with 6.5 in France, 8.3 in Italy and 8.5 in Germany.” Canada has 6.5 per 10,000. https://theconversation.com/nhs-dentistry-is-in-crisis-are-overseas-dentists-the-answer-223842#:~:text=It%20is%20worth%20noting%20that,Italy%20and%208.5%20in%20Germany.

You can argue that genuinely poor people have better access under tax-funded systems. And I am sure its partially true, at least on average as they’ll be meeting government-postulated metrics. But a friend is working in a dental clinic in Wales and they are overwhelmed/don’t accept new clients. And you have to travel for over 2 hours to get an alternative, which does not accept new patients either. In my anecdotal experience I have not come across anything like this in Canada. And being in a dentist’s office in Canada is a much more pleasant experience than in the UK (again, anecdotal).