33 percent of Italians worried that the dentist’s quote is very expensive and 21 percent fear they won’t be able to afford the cost
If pain during treatment is the strongest fear patients say they have to face, fear of financial bloodletting takes second place. 33% of the sample covered by the Idi Evolution / Nielsen survey indeed worried that the budget is very expensive. And 21% who will not be able to afford the expense. According to the Rbm-Censis Report (2019), over 90% of dental care in Italy is actually provided by the private individual. The relative expenses would be higher than 9.5 billion euros and in absolute terms (26%) those with the greatest impact on Italian families as regards health expenditure. Many are forced to give up treatment (1 in 4), because they cannot afford it. The economic crisis triggered by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine seems to have accentuated the phenomenon, albeit there are no signs of recovery as evidenced by the same Idi Evolution / Nielsen survey: 49% of the interviewees undergo prevention / control visits every 6 months and 30% every year.
Strategies for finding a solution to the cost problem
But the problem remains e the strategies for trying to solve it are different. Prevention, first of all. Because, as experts point out, the diseases that dentists deal with most, caries, gingivitis and periodontal diseases and their respective complications, they are pathologies whose causes are well known and easily preventable using appropriate interventions. And then there is the question of assistance model. The National Health Service gives insufficient answers and so who can turn to private practices which in fact represent the true medicine of proximity.
The answers of the Ssn
The public service is still very limited in terms of numbers and above all in the type of services, mainly linked to urgent situations
. We do not make complete treatment plans with taking charge of the individual subject for all his needs, as happens in the private sector. Accessing treatment is therefore very difficult, he stresses Claudia Dellaviapresident of the degree course in Dental Hygiene of the University of Milan. Very few forces deployed: according to an estimate by the Italian College of Primary Hospitals Dentistry, Odontostomatology, Maxillofacial Surgery – Anpo, in 2021 they amounted to 2 thousand dentists in the outpatient specialist in local health authorities, more than 200 in hospital wards / clinics. Furthermore, Italian public dentistry provides for the provision of a minimum number of services, the type of which is included in Essential levels of assistance (Lea).
The shortcomings of the PNRR and community houses
In the National recovery and resilience planof funds destined for dentistry there is no trace. On the other hand, the Dental Register Commissions (CAO) had asked to provide for the presence of their specialists in all community homes. and in the field of home care. An instance strongly supported in Lombardy at university level where we are trying to carry out a project: We would very much like that especially thepediatric dentistry was structured in such a way as to reach the blanket populationperhaps starting from a very early age already around three years old, he says Daniela Carmagnolaresearcher in community dentistry at the State University of Milan.
This way we could is to capture the attention of the family, with respect to a series of rules related to eating habits and oral hygiene, both begin to hire the child who grows up with the habit of going to the dentist and start it precisely at the visit of the 5-6 years that the one in which the sealing is planned. The Lombardy Region has decided to introduce what is called pediatric and social dentistry in community homes, but it is not yet clear how it will be characterized.
Andi’s project
In Italy, therefore, to do the lion’s share, again the private sector: today there are 60,000 studios and 44,611 dentists work there. This model has a series of costs whose final sum is unfortunately then passed on to the patient, plus what must be destined for the professional, he says. Carlo Ghirlanda, president of the National Association of Italian Dentists. To answer the problem of the sustainability of care, Andi is trying to create together with some banking groups a dental health policy project with a sort of bonus / malus mechanism which will premier the patients most attentive to the care of their mouth.
October 29, 2022 (change October 29, 2022 | 15:08)
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