Laurence Stone, DDS, of Doylestown (Pa.) Dental Solutions, referred to financially motivated over-diagnosis and over-treatment as one of the most dangerous trends in the industry.
Dr. Stone, who has been practicing for more than 50 years, said that while there have always been outliers in the industry, the number of dentists over-diagnosing patients has grown in recent years.
“Some of these places are looking at someone’s insurance, and if it’s covered, they’re recommending four quadrants of root planing and scaling when patients don’t really need it, and then billing insurance companies for it,” he told Becker’s. “I know things change all the time, but it’s very upsetting to be hearing these things, and I’m getting a lot of calls from people asking for my advice about these issues.”
Dr. Stone added that more regulations are needed to prevent and catch cases of over-diagnoses. Without this, more patients will begin to lose respect for dental professionals, he warned.
“The only way to do it is with some kind of oversight. The traditional guardrails are the insurance companies looking at some of the practices dentists are involved in, but … I think it’s up to the licensing boards and the state dental associations to do a better job of policing some of these things,” he said.