Dr. Dympna Kavanagh:

In fact it is the other way around. In a packaging system, when one takes a preventive approach, it is all in one single menu. It is not about picking and choosing and looking then for each item. That is the beauty of it from an insurance perspective and is why we follow the insurance models. They do not do it unless it is very easy for them to administer. The packaging model is very simple and straightforward. It is one package and one deal. We are trying to put as much as we can into the routine care on fee per item package. Some of the care should obviously be picked and selected between the dentist and the patient themselves. We are trying to lessen that.

For very complex care, which we want to bring more into practice, as was highlighted in line with Sláintecare, we may then be looking at different models. It may remain fee per item or may remain service level agreements.

Internationally, the majority of other public services use implants for retaining dentures in the care of the elderly. We do not use that here. We will have to see then where our clinical dental technicians and technologists come in and will look at contracts in that regard. It is simpler for the patient. They do not have to worry because they have their package and within that it is simply a menu selection. The dentist can then simply send in a package, regardless of what they pick from the menu.