In brief: Aspen Dental reaches settlement for "bait and switch" allegations; how much are people flossing?
How often are people really flossing?
Every day at every practice, dental pros stress the value of a home care routine that includes flossing. But how often are patients really doing it? The results of a survey by Health Digest might surprise you.
Legal woes for Aspen Dental in Massachusetts
Following allegations of “bait-and-switch advertising campaigns" that claimed that Aspen Dental engaged in a scheme to deceive consumers into purchasing dental services and products advertised as “free” and that it worked with “all” insurance when it didn't accept MassHealth, the company reached a $3.5 million settlement with the Massachusetts Attorney General's office last week.
10 countries with the most advanced dentistry
Yahoo has curated a list of the 10 countries around the world with the most advanced dentistry. With “little coverage of the [dental] sector,” article researchers used the QS World University Rankings by Dentistry, took a look at which countries have the top universities in the top 50 rankings, and took the median value of their score.
The connection between GERD and periodontitis
A recent study has shown that patients with GERD have an increased risk of developing periodontitis. The study, the first nationwide population-based retrospective cohort study to analyze the occurrence of periodontitis in patients with and without GERD, concluded that "Clinicians should pay more attention to the development of periodontitis while caring for patients with GERD” and that “the combination of GERD and periodontitis may further worsen our overall health.”
Unexplainable wage gap persists for women dentists in US
According to a broad study using US Census data, “The dental workforce is diversifying, but sex and racial disparities in income persist” to the tune of women dentists in the US earning 22% less than their male peers, and Black women dentists earning 24% less. The study was published in JADA and notes that the “income gap between sexes, although reduced over time, is now less explainable than in the past.”
Florida’s oral health situation “an untreated crisis”
With 66 of 67 of its counties lacking enough dentists, Florida leads the US in terms of the number of people—nearly 6 million—who are living in areas with a shortage of dental professionals. What’s more, data shows that three counties have no dentists while several others have only one, and that of those counties that do have adequate providers, many don’t take Medicaid.
