Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 18/02) - Dentists in the Northwest Territories are threatening to pull out of a federally-funded dental plan for aboriginal clients.

A meeting last Thursday in Yellowknife with the Non-Insured Health Benefits (NIHB) program NWT representative, Marc Plante, left the dentists with no new offers on the table.

Dental associations across Canada have been at odds with Health Canada for the last five years when rules to the NIHB program changed. Dentists must get pre-approved by the federal government to do work exceeding $600 annually on aboriginal clients, who do not have extended medical coverage.

B.C. dentists were on the verge of opting out of the program last March. Some Yukon dentists also threatened to do the same.

Many dentists say their applications for expensive surgical procedures are routinely turned down. They are forced to decide between turning patients away or paying for the surgery out of their own pocket.

Changes to program

Yellowknifer contacted NIHB director general, Dr. Peter Cooney, two weeks ago. He promised changes were on the way.

"It's a large program," said Cooney. "Generally, it works quite well, but certainly we recognize there are areas that we need to work on with the dentists, and we are doing that."

Cooney said part of the changes at NIHB include raising the pre-authorization amount to $800 per patient annually, and the creation of an online data processing system that would make it easier for dentists to submit claims.

He said plans were being made to meet with each dental association across the country to discuss the changes this fall.

"Well, you might have some good news for him then," said Cooney, when told the NWT-Nunavut Dental Association's executive director, Don Portz, was unaware of any changes to NIHB policy.

But Portz said when he met with Plante last week, nothing new was offered.

"It was just about the way we expected it," said Portz. "Nothing... He made no offer of anything other than 'well, you know that I'm really going to work for you.'"

Portz said it didn't even appear Plante was aware of any policy changes in the works.

Plante could not be reached for comment by press time.

Without a new offer, Portz said the association's executive will have no choice but to recommend NWT dentists withdraw from the NIHB program.

That means aboriginal patients will have to pay up front for dental surgeries and get re-imbursed themselves from the federal government.

A decision will likely come at the association's next meeting to be held in either December or January.