The importance of medical and dental integration is widely known and accepted throughout the industry, yet advancing that integration hasn’t been as quick as some would like.
One of the biggest challenges in the way is the financial side of things, according to Thomas Allen, DDS, the dental director at Old Farm Dental in Salt Lake City.
“There needs to be a sharing agreement between the dental software companies,” Dr. Allen told Becker’s. “There are four or five that are the most popular. It’s not a huge logistical problem, but it’s, again, it’s all a money thing.”
It’s not just the software companies that are dragging their feet on integration. Some dentists have concerns with potential responsibility issues that could arise on the medical side of things and don’t want to be accused of practicing medicine.
According to Dr. Allen, that won’t be the case, and dental practices that provide services such as blood pressure screenings can actually use that as a marketing advantage.
“If you’re screening, you’re not treating and you’re not diagnosing,” Dr. Allen said. “Patients will just think, ‘Wow, he cares and he is more into my health just beyond fixing my tooth.'”
In 2025, there was a greater push toward integrated medical and dental care. The FDI World Dental Federation urged health systems to include oral health indicators in EHRs, Henderson, Nev.-based PDS Health launched a business unit to integrate primary care with dentistry, among other advancements.
Dr. Allen is expecting that the integration movement will continue to pick up its pace this year.
“Yes, expecting more. Yes, it’s going to be pushed,” Dr. Allen said. “There has been a lot of money invested into this and a lot of effort into pushing forward with this. It’s been something talked about for a long time, but no one has taken it and run with it yet.”
