Innovative Healthcare Solution Formulated Locally
Dental Alternative to High Cost Insurance
(Tumwater, WA) As the healthcare debate rages nationally, one Tumwater dentist has decided to do something tangible to help individuals and families afford quality dental care. “Statistically speaking, more than 60% of Americans don’t have dental insurance,” said Dr. Brant Banner from his dental practice building on Littlerock Road Southwest. “This means that a large majority of people here locally delay dental procedures, which is not good for dental health or overall healthcare.” A recent report by CBS News cited by Dr. Banner indicated dental decay as a contributing factor in many seemingly unrelated problems… including employment problems, heart disease and childhood school absences.
“Even here in Tumwater we see kids in our practice who are in chronic pain because a simple cavity was not caught in time. That cavity was not caught because the parents perceived that they could not afford dental care. By the time the pain for the child is unbearable… the cost of solving the problem has escalated two or three times over what it would have been if caught a year earlier. This bothered me a great deal and I decided to be part of finding a solution.” The solution that Dr. Banner helped develop with other dentists across the country is both simple and quite ingenious… and may prove to be a model for healthcare reform across the board. “Numbers don’t lie… and we found that we could create a system where families could get earlier preventative and less expensive dental care.” The program is called QDP – Quality Dental Plan (QualityDentalPlan.com), which is now rolling out nationally across the nation thanks to Dr. Banner and other forwarding thinking dentists.
“I sat down with my front office team and saw how much money was going to insurance companies, claim forms administration and collections costs. We also calculated how many hundreds of extra dollars families were spending by not catching potential problems that we could have found during a simple annual dental exam. When I began to run these numbers with other dentists around America… we found that we could offer our patients free initial exams, free exam x-rays, free teeth cleanings and as much as 20% off our usual fee structure simply by creating our own in-house dental savings plan.” The result was QDP… and Dr. Banner is quite proud of what he and the other dentists have created. “This one simple step has allowed us to eliminate the insurance company middle man… and those savings are going right back into the pockets of folks here locally. I’m really proud to be part of this forward looking cost-savings movement. This is a great system for dental care everywhere.”
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For more information about Quality Dental Plan go to QualityDentalPlan.com. To schedule a press interview with Dr. Brant Banner, contact Kathryn Kelly at 1-508-643-8000 or Kathryn@cwrpartners.com .
