From the Desk of Dr. Ogata

From the desk of Dr. Randy Ogata

Executive Director Summer 2021

A storm has been brewing on the horizon for many years, but it’s been masked by the fog of reimbursement rates, legal fights and other issues. Now the critical shortage in dental workforce is causing the traditional delivery of care model via a dental team to be compromised, even though we have enough dentists to provide care. When SKCDS dentists have ads out for four or six months and still can’t hire a hygienist…there’s a problem. When SKCDS dentists have ads out for six to nine months and still can’t hire an assistant…there’s a problem. These are family living wage jobs in Seattle that are going unfilled because the pipeline to train hygienists and assistants is unnecessarily convoluted.

Washington State and King County does not need midlevel providers nor restorative training for the majority of the hygienists whom dentist need to do cleanings. There is enough dental workforce in the dentists present to provide the needed restorative and emergent care, without additional non-dentist restorative options. Making the restorative option just that, an option to hygienists who want to go back and take the additional training, would decrease the amount of time it takes to graduate. Why is it that Washington State requires a different basic standard for hygienists, which reduces the ability of hygienists from other states to move to Washington to earn a living? Wouldn’t it make sense for a physician in Washington to be a physician in Oregon? A dentist in Idaho to also be qualified as a dentist in Wyoming? Yet a hygienist in most other states is unable to be a hygienist in Washington without restrictive additions to a basic RDH training that is not taught in most other program’s curriculums.

We need dentists who treat legislators to help educate these patients and let them know that dentists want to help their constituent base, only we are limited by the workforce shortages that are currently plaguing the entire state of Washington. But with their help, if certain restrictions were lifted or rules rescinded, we could help them by allowing the free enterprise model to take place in King County, while providing more jobs for their districts. We need every SKCDS dentist to swarm Olympia during Dental Action Day when it comes up next year – one voice, one message, one profession.

SKCDS leadership has heard its membership and appropriated funds to advertise King County in another state’s classifieds ads, plus has started a dedicated job board for dentists to post opportunities for these hygienists to look at and contact prospective offices. This is a SKCDS member benefit and will be free through the end of 2021 for those that wish to post an ad.

Last quarter I challenged every SKCDS dentist to encourage at least one of their patients to attend a dental assisting training program in our area. The response received from dentists was “why didn’t I think of that sooner”; it is such a simple idea that we would encourage patients who we know and trust us to join our profession with an open invitation to come back to our offices when they graduate. If dentists want more dental assistants, we have to take action. In South King County, dentists could even encourage high school students to attend the Puget Sound Skill Center, which can teach these students the basics of dental assisting before they graduate. John F. Kennedy once stated, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country? So on behalf of SKCDS President Adam Kennedy, “Ask not what SKCDS can do for you, but what can you do for your dental profession?”

SKCDF has not sat idle, in fact it is funding events and projects to make a difference in the lives of hundreds of families. SKCDS dentists, including then President Austin Baruffi, helped staff the first Medical Teams International (MTI) / SKCDF / UW School of Dentistry event at Jubilee Reach in Bellevue where we treated 48 patients, performed 157 procedures, referred 20 patients and delivered over $21K in dental treatments; plus as a bonus 30 individuals were vaccinated. More recently, the SKCDF Board voted to fund the expansion of the Shoreline RDH program at the UW SOD so they can increase the class size back to 25 by next year. For SKCDF to continue to do “great things” like these, they need SKCDS’s dentist’s generous donations in restoring the Foundation’s financial base; with funds going out for the two fantastic projects, and several more on the way, SKCDF needs your support!

I will end this Executive Director’s column with one of my favorite Seuss-isms,

UNLESS someone like you Cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It’s not. -The Lorax

Honored to serve SKCDS Dentists, Dr. Randy Ogata