With high costs for dental services, Alberta is facing calls to rein in the fees.
It was in 1997 that the Alberta Dental Association published its last fee guide, yet nearly two decades later, many of the fees — such as those for a typical recall exam — remain equal to or higher than the rates currently charged in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. “Nineteen years later, the fees charged in neighbouring provinces have still not caught up with the last fee guide published in Alberta,” Dolores Berezowsky, senior manager for dental services at Alberta Blue Cross, told Benefits Canada’s Calgary Benefits Summit on May 5. In the meantime, fees in Alberta have continued to rise, forcing plan members to pay more and, in many cases, sending Albertans without coverage to seek treatment in other provinces or forgo regular preventative care.
The Alberta government has committed to a review of dental costs, “which we’re hoping will have some impact on dental fees in Alberta,” said Berezowsky, who would like to see Alberta move towards mandatory disclosure of fees or at least allow dentists to disclose their rates (currently, Alberta dentists can’t advertise their fees) so that consumers can make an informed choice before getting into a dentist’s chair.
“If we want to sustain dental plan benefits, there has to be some freedom for advertising. As consumers, we have to know what the dentist is going to charge before we go to them.”
Options on the table for the government review include implementing restorative controls to bring costs in line with other provinces, mandating more open pricing in order to support consumer choice and foster competition and separating the role of the regulatory body that oversees the practice of dentistry in Alberta.
So what can plan sponsors do? Options for containing escalating dental costs include changing plan designs to introduce lagging fee guides and making changes to coinsurance. The problem with the last option, Berezowsky notes, is that while it would decrease plan sponsor costs, it would further shift the burden onto plan members.
Yet another option would be to replace a traditional dental benefits plan with a spending account, leaving it up to individual plan members to decide how they want to use their spending dollars.
“I think the one thing that plan sponsors and the insurance industry need to do is get involved in the provincial review,” said Berezowsky. “Dental fees can’t continue as they are in Alberta. Costs are truly unsustainable.”
Read more from Benefits Canada‘s 2016 Calgary Benefits Summit