Physician-dentist collaboration provides benefits for both patients and providers and promotes value-based care and reimbursement.

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Physician-Dentist Teamwork
Essential for Optimal Patient Care
Physician-dentist collaboration provides benefits for both patients
and providers and promotes value-based care and reimbursement.

2. www.outsourcestrategies.com Phone: 1-800-670-2809
A medical billing company knows the importance of billing medically necessary
dental services to medical plans. Billing patients' medical benefits plan will ease the
financial burden on patients and safeguard their annual dental insurance benefits.
By ensuring the right diagnosis and procedures codes, companies providing efficient
dental billing services help providers maximize reimbursement and minimize
denials. Today, with many studies suggesting a link between physical and oral
health, it has become evident that physician-dentist teamwork is necessary to
promote optimal patient care.
A recent article in Medical Economics discusses the advantages of physician-dentist
collaboration for both patients and providers:
 A comprehensive study by UnitedHealthcare found that when the oral health
of individuals with chronic medical conditions, such as diabetes, asthma and
cardiovascular disease was improved, it reduced their annual healthcare
claims by nearly $1,300.
 Improve the care of diabetics and asthmatics would not be possible until
their dental problems are addressed. It shows why dentists and physicians
should be aware of the importance of the dental-oral health link.
 If trained, dentists can play an important role in some functions in primary
care such as managing blood pressure. Such skills would be very useful given
the current shortage of primary care physicians. Moreover, dentists that have
these basic skills could help people who visit them but don’t see their primary
care physician.
 Physician-dentist collaboration will promote value-based care and
reimbursement.
Research has also shown that dental sleep medicine practitioners who collaborate
with sleep physicians will be better-positioned to provide the highest quality of care
for patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).
However, there are several challenges involved in ensuring effective collaboration
between dentists and medical practitioners. One is the issue of professional

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territoriality. Identifying a reasonable scope of practice is important to building and
promoting collaboration between dentists and physicians.
Education is another important aspect. For instance, the Medical Economics report
mentions a pediatric practice in Pennsylvania that has two dental hygienists on site
for 20 hours per week. The dental professionals educate parents on oral health
while their children are in the exam room.
To make this model succeed, experts recommend that physicians consider dentists
as a specialist for consultations and referrals. Primary care clinicians should also
educate themselves on oral health issues and practices. For example, physicians
can enroll in a nationally recognized online program like Smile for Life which is
aimed at enhancing the role of primary care physicians in improving the oral health
for people of all ages. Experts also recommend that, in addition to discussing
matters with their dentists, physicians could talk to their health insurance company
about strategies to improve their dental HEDIS scores. HEDIS coding captures
data for performance measures and promotes efficient medical billing for
improvement in claims reimbursement.