New Canada dental program not without risks, experts say

A new dental program for Canadians has experts wondering if it’s too good to be true. 

The Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP), a policy to help those in households with an income of less than $90,000 access dental services, opened applications to eligible Canadians on June 1. 

As the country continues to maneuver through an ongoing cost-of-living crisis, the CDCP’s arrival is a massive stroke of luck for those struggling with access to dental care, as on paper, it provides limited coverage for cleanings, examinations, fillings, root canals, extractions and dentures. 

While a major step in providing all Canadians with adequate care, its rapid implementation and one-size-fits-all approach have left dentistry authorities cautious.

“This is a very quick expansion,” Dr. Maneesh Jain, president of the Ontario Dental Association (ODA), told INsauga.com. “I don’t want to criticize, but this program was launched just after 18 months of planning. Normally, a program of this magnitude takes three to five years to develop.”

The CDCP has been quietly rolled out to select demographics since 2023, with staggered applications distributed to senior citizens, people with disabilities, and youth under 18 over the last two years. 

With applications now open to all Canadians who qualify, Jain is concerned that the program may buckle under the weight of millions of Canadians, as those lacking coverage (one-third of the national population) could overload the system as they try to access dental care. 

Beyond the CDCP’s ability to handle a stampede of Canadians with tooth aches, another variable that has Jain concerned is the current state of the Canadian dental system itself. 

“Nationwide, there is a huge shortage of critical dental staff. We are in dire need of more dental assistants and more dental hygienists.”

While it may be some time before the cracks begin to show, Jain notes that past iterations of the CDCP can help plan for the future, as a substantial backlog of waitlists for the then-limited patients began to pile up nationwide back in November.

As a result, Jain is concerned that significant delays may occur as the current application window widens. 

“These are patients who have been waiting a long time. Dentist offices get these requests in, and then they can get rejected without any reason given as to why the rejection is happening,” says Jain. 

For Andrew Ostro, CEO of insurance company PolicyMe, cracks in the CDCP aren’t just in its rollout but also in its fine print.

“When you look at the current rollout and its eligibility requirements, there is the potential to create a ton of confusion about whether people are covered or not, and it could end up leaving people worse off than they were before,” Ostro told INsauga.com.

Ostro noted that Canadians should have a solid understanding of eligibility and limitations before diving headfirst into CDCP coverage, primarily because residents with access to any form of dental care, partial or otherwise, are immediately disqualified from eligibility. 

He also indicated that it is not an employer’s duty to determine whether an employee’s household income is greater or less than $90,000.

As a result, the risk of a rug-pulling employee dental coverage is at an all-time high, as employers may believe the CDCP is a better option than allocating funds into benefits packages for employees.

A bleak picture, as recent data from PolicyMe indicated in Ontario alone, four out of 10 residents fear their benefits packages may be cancelled, as the cost-of-living crisis threatens the sustainability of their benefit plans.

Additionally, according to Ostro, with the limited coverage the CDCP provides, dentists will likely favour patients with private plans due to ease of implementation, transparency, and scale of coverage.

“With all the waiting lists, I can guarantee you that [dentists] are going to give most spots away to a person with private coverage, as opposed to someone coming in with only the CDCP,” says Ostro. “They’re running their own businesses, and when push comes to shove, they are going to choose a customer paying more.”

To prevent further confusion, Jain believes that substantial overhauls in execution and long-term strategy must be applied on behalf of the newly elected Carney government, especially since the CDCP is technically a holdover from the previous Trudeau administration.

“We need to look at how much is going into this program and how much they are looking at in terms of funding it, because the current spend is almost triple the size of the original budget.”

For Ostro, he believes that those behind the CDCP need to orchestrate a major push in transparency, so that no one cancels their coverage in favour of something that may not be available to them.

“People are already out there incorrectly assuming and making the wrong decisions in how this plan works, because all you hear is the government touting ‘ we are doing this for you, we are going to help people, we are extending it and everyone’s getting access to it,’ and that’s just the wrong messaging.”

For more information on the CDCP, visit Health Canada’s official website.