Have you ever had a moment when you were very grateful for past decisions you made because of the position it has put you in now, that you never anticipated?
I have thought many times over the last couple of years, how grateful every dentist should be that he or she chose dentistry as a profession, instead of medicine and its related cousins, for the pure fact that dentistry continues to allow you the independence and freedom to practice how you want, where you want, and charge what you want without government
intervention.
This fact was brought to my attention this week as I sat with many of the top leaders of the optometry world. Optometry is stuck in the middle of the healthcare battle with private insurance on one side and government healthcare on the other. If optometry has its way, it will go the way of the rest of medicine and be part of the total healthcare equation with government involvement. Why? Because government reimbursement for eye care services is more favorable than private insurance…for now. No telling what it will be in the future. With the future so fuzzy in terms of government’s long-term involvement in healthcare, it is a tough decision to make because of all of the future unknowns.
But for dentistry, staying independent and out of the government healthcare debate is a good place to be. Stay informed. Stay vigilant. Protect the freedom of the profession.
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