Delegates say quality dental care cant be taken for granted

San Antonio鈥擶hile high quality dental care exists in many parts of the world, don’t assume you’ll find it everywhere.

That’s the message the ADA House of Delegates is sending to patients through passage of Resolution 78H-2008, which addresses the issue of dental care while traveling.

Many Americans, some with language and cultural ties to other countries, have experimented with dental tourism by combining vacations in other countries with nonurgent dental care. To ensure that patients have the information they need to make sure they’re receiving quality care in a clean, safe environment, the House passed Res. 78H-2008, which calls for the Council on Communications to:

• explore linking The Journal of the American Dental Association patient handout, “Dental Care While Traveling” (posted on www.ada.org) to other Web sites such as AAA and AARP;
• seek media opportunities to convey the information in “Dental Care While Traveling”;
• with appropriate ADA agencies, explore the feasibility of creating a patient education brochure based on information contained in “Dental Care While Traveling” that could be distributed in dental offices;
• report back to 2009 House on its progress.

“There are a lot of unknowns when traveling to another country for dental care,” Dr. Edmond Hewlett, an ADA consumer advisor, said in a media interview on this topic. Dr. Hewlett is also associate professor at the University of California-Los Angeles School of Dentistry.

“While you may receive good care and perhaps pay less, be sure to balance that with the risk of experiencing problems that would require additional or ongoing care resulting in additional expenses,” said Dr. Hewlett. “Here in the U.S. you can just pick up the phone and call your dentist鈥攖hat’s not the case when you receive treatment in another country.”