Link Between Good Dental Health And General Health Becoming Clearer

Some public health experts have asked whether results for the general population apply to workers who have had good health and dental benefits, or whether the results apply mainly to the many Americans who have no dental coverage.

Dr. David Albert, a researcher at Columbia University, recently presented preliminary results of a study addressing those questions in Orlando, Fla., at the annual meeting of the American Association for Dental Research, Alexandria, Va..

Albert’s team sifted through 2 years of data for 144,225 consumers who have both health and dental coverage from Aetna, Hartford. The researchers have found evidence that treating gum disease during the first year of the study actually cut the total cost of treating diabetes and coronary artery disease during the second year.

CIGNA Corp., Philadelphia, has reacted to studies by giving one free extra cleaning to every pregnant woman who has health coverage and dental coverage from units of CIGNA. The company also is paying 100% of the cost of periodontal scaling and root planing for pregnant women who have signs of gum disease, and it is covering 100% of the cost of treating inflamed gums around wisdom teeth.

But dental benefits experts interviewed say this is a tough environment for persuading employers to add or change dental benefits packages. Although most employers that have dental coverage are keeping their plans, few employers are adding new ones, marketers say.

Redesigning dental plans to provide extra cleanings and periodontal coverage for specific classes of employees, such as pregnant employees or employees with heart problems, could also be challenging, Album says. “Employers traditionally like a uniform level of benefits for all employees.”

At Dentafits, Thomas says employers can give employees the freedom to choose their own cleaning and periodontal treatment schedules by shifting to “dollar-based” plans, which offer employees a set amount of reimbursement for any care chosen during a year, and away from conventional “procedure-based” plans, which reimburse patients for the cost of specific procedures, such as cleanings.

Carriers offer dollar-based plans throughout the U.S., but “they’re just not promoted,” Thomas says.

Most carriers seem to stick with procedure-based plans, Thomas says.

Small employers that buy procedure-based plans usually have to stick with the carrier’s standard benefit menu, but an employer with a few thousand covered lives probably could work with a carrier to add extra cleaning and extra periodontal treatment benefits to a procedure-based plan, Thomas says.