Washington Dental Service is part of problem

The Feb. 15 editorial was about Washington Dental Service Foundation helping to fund programs for dental care for pregnant women and persons with diabetes. Those are great causes, but also mentioned was the need for more dentists to see Medicaid kids. Therein lies the paradox: WDS is part of the problem.

WDS/DeltaDentalWA pays us at essentially 2003 rates, yet our business expenses keep increasing. In that climate, I had to quit seeing Medicaid patients. In 2014 I wrote off $101,000 for Medicaid, and $1million in my career. None of that is tax-deductible, other than overhead costs.

The money that WDS Foundation “generously” gives out is at the expense of less treatment for WDS subscribers, as well as frozen fees and denied treatment, for WDS member dentists. The 90 percent membership figure, for Washington dentists belonging to WDS, isn’t because we are happy with them. It’s because they have a coercive monopoly: Do it the WDS way, or close your doors.

Even if the WDS Foundation money is equivalent to taxes saved by WDS/DDWA being a non-profit, they are still part of the problem, as dentists can less and less afford to do charity work, due to ten or more years of frozen and reduced fees.

This story was originally published March 28, 2017 at 5:45 PM with the headline "Washington Dental Service is part of problem."