ODSP Recipients Losing Out On Dental Care

Jeff Green | Mar 19, 2014

For people on government assistance programs, in particular those receiving Ontario Disability Support Payments (ODSP), finding a dentist is becoming a problem.

We received a letter at the News a couple of weeks ago from a woman who recently moved to the Tichborne area. As an ODSP recipient, her regular dental care is paid for by the Government of Ontario.

She phoned the Sharbot Lake Dental Clinic to make an appointment, and when asked if she had a dental plan she replied that she was an ODSP recipient. She was then told that the clinic would not accept her as a regular patient. She phoned two other clinics in Kingston and received the same response. As a result, she is going to have to drive to her former home community of Brockville to get service from the dentist who has been treating her for 18 years.

When we called the Sharbot Lake Dental Clinic, Sandy Robertson at the front desk confirmed that the clinic, which is owned by Dr. Richard Dale, is no longer accepting ODSP recipients as new patients.

“If anyone has a tooth ache or is in pain, we will see them,” she said, “but it is true we are no longer accepting new ODSP patients as regular patients.”

The reason, she explained and which Dr. Dale later expounded further, is that the government pay for providing services to ODSP recipients has been slipping further and further behind the normal fees that the clinic charges.

“It was never a money-maker for us to treat patients under these government plans, but the fees have dropped well below what I need in order to cover my basic costs, never mind what I would need to turn any kind of profit,” Dr. Dale said.

He added that he is cutting back on his practice in general as he gets older, and has been considering not taking on any new patients to keep from being over-extended. The patients on assistance are the first category that he is turning away.

The fee schedule for services to ODSP patients bears out Dr. Dale's assertion. For example, for a simple tooth extraction, the government pays out $37.27, which is well under the Ontario Dental Association (ODA) recommended fee of $128.

“I don’t charge as much as the dental association's suggested fee guide, but you can see that at less than $38, I lose money providing that service,” he said.

While the tooth extraction case is an extreme example, a chart prepared by the ODA in January of this year shows that provincial government programs now pay 46% of the ODA's suggested fees. That number has been dropping steadily since the late 1980s, at which time the government paid 90% of the suggested fee. That dropped to 75% by 1998, and it has continued to drop ever since.

It has now gotten to the point where a number of clinics are simply turning patients on government assistance away.

“People can blame the dentists if they want,” said Dr. Dale, “but it is really the continual slide in fees that is driving this, not an unwillingness to treat all patients.”

Dr. Richard Caldwell, the president of the Ontario Dental Association, said that the association’s major concern is with the “oral health of Ontario residents of all income levels and circumstances. We are working with the government to try and alleviate a number of inadequacies in the system.”

He pointed out that it was the dentists themselves who set up a program to provide dental care to people on assistance. It was eventually take over by the government of Ontario, “and has deteriorated ever since.”

Caldwell said that the ODA has been attempting to set up a formal meeting with the Minister of Community and Social Services as soon as possible to address this and other situations but has not received a response from the ministry.

He said that while ODA is committed to the oral health of Ontarians, the association’s members are independent operators and decide how to run their own businesses on their own.