Coalition Says Dental Costs and Wait Times May Rise In Maine.

PORTLAND, Maine -- Many Maine residents could find themselves paying significantly more for routine dental care and waiting longer for appointments if a new proposal by the American Dental Association is approved, according to TEAM 1500, a non-profit coalition that aims to ensure equal access to health care for all Americans.

An influential committee of the ADA, the world's largest professional association of dentists, is pushing proposals that could force the most fearful and anxious dental patients to seek out specially trained dentists to receive the exact same care currently provided by their family dentists.

"The ADA, which is supposed to be governed by public necessity and safety, instead has been hijacked by a small but influential group of dental elitists who have lost touch with the common citizen," says Dean Rotbart, director of TEAM 1500.

If approved, the new ADA proposals would disqualify hundreds of dentists in Maine from the ability to provide their anxious and fearful patients the safe and effective treatments that many dentists already offer. Instead, the ADA would give these dentists this choice: Obtain excessive and nearly insurmountable additional training or drop the treatment method - known as oral conscious sedation - altogether.

"The ADA's proposal creates a problem where there is none, then seeks to fix it," Rotbart explains. "More than one million adult dental patients have safely and effectively been treated without incident with oral conscious sedation under existing ADA guidelines."

If the ADA proposals are adopted, most Maine dentists won't invest the time and money necessary to obtain the additional training and hence will consign their fearful and anxious patients to high-priced, specially trained dentists or no treatments whatsoever, TEAM 1500 says.

"It's as though this small ADA panel awoke one morning and decided - unilaterally and without any scientific basis - to ban the use of novacaine by all family dentists," Rotbart says. "What sense does that make, except to the tiny minority of specially trained dentists who could still provide novacaine - at a higher price - to their well-heeled patients?"

The big losers in all this, TEAM 1500 says, are average citizens who are already hesitant to visit the dentist and don't need much coaxing to stay away. "The poor and handicapped are flat out of luck," Rotbart adds.

TEAM 1500 is asking Maine residents and dentists who don't want to see the ADA consign basic treatment to the realm of elite dentists to write or call the State of Maine Board of Dental Examiners which oversees safe dentistry in the state.

To Call the Board of Dental Examiners: 207-287-3333

Letters should be mailed to:
ADA PROTEST
c/o TEAM 1500
P.O. Box 3714
Beverly Hills, CA 90212

All letters will be forward to both the Maine Board of Dental
Examiners and the ADA.

For additional information, visit the TEAM 1500 web site at
www.team1500.org.