As the president-elect of the American Dental Association, Dr. Richard Rosato would like to untangle the paradoxical way dentistry is health care that often isn’t considered part of health care.
“I think that is something that happened a long time ago … dentistry was carved out of overall health. But we need to drive it towards being part of overall health care,” said Rosato. “There are connections between oral health and heart disease, diabetes, premature delivery. … Oral health is one of the first places that you see disease overall in the body.”
Rosato, 56, is an oral surgeon with practices in Concord, the Hanover area and Peterborough. Long active in state, regional and national dental associations, he was elected president of the ADA last October and is spending the year learning the ropes under the current president, Dr. Brett Kessler, before taking the reins in October.
Rosato got his undergraduate degree from Saint Anselm College in Manchester before going to Tufts dental school and interning in Chicago. He returned to New Hampshire in 2000. He and his wife, Dr. Laurie Rosato who is a dentist, and their three children live in Concord.
As the youngest president-elect of the ADA in recent years, he’ll continue to practice three days a week. It’s unusual to have an ADA president who is active rather than retired, he said: “It helps. Often times with issues I’ll think: what am I dealing with in my everyday practice?”
Among those issues is filling the workforce, especially dental hygienists. Many of them retired or left the industry during the pandemic because of the risk of getting COVID when working on a patient’s mouth. And while the nation has enough dentists, Rosato said, they are poorly distributed, with not enough working in rural areas.
As for the difference between health care for the mouth and health care for the rest of the body, it can be most easily seen in insurance. Dental insurance is almost always separate from health insurance, generally isn’t regulated, and usually carries an annual cap in benefits around $1,500 that hasn’t budged much in recent decades. It focuses on paying for relatively inexpensive preventative work such as check-ups but leaves the cost of major dental work largely to the patient.
“Dental insurance right now is really just a defined benefit,” said Rosato. Integrating medical and dental work will require integrating the differing types of insurance, which he admits will be difficult.
Rosario pointed to an economic study by the Health Policy Institute which indicated that increasing health care expenditure on dental work, especially for underserved populations like rural areas and poor neighbors, would pay for itself in future health-care savings.
“We need to drive that message so that our government begins to shape policy along those lines … If that happens I think public perception will change, that my oral health is important for me to be healthy overall,” he said.
In terms of government, the big question right now is the possibility that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime opponent of public water fluoridation and many other traditional medical practices, will become Secretary of Health and Human Services.
The ADA has long supported public water fluoridation because students show that it reduces cavities and other forms of oral disease, especially in populations that have less access to regular dental work. A recent study and legal case has raised some questions about safe levels of fluoride but haven’t given cause to change that opinion, Rosato said.
“The current science, and we have not seen this disproved, has shown that especially for at-risk communities, fluoridation is considered one of the top-10 innovations of the 20th century,” he said. He pointed to studies showing health benefits of fluoridation when looking at similar cities, one with public water fluoridation and one without.
If Kennedy is confirmed by the Senate, Rosato said, “We will do our best to educate him about what he will be doing to at-risk populations of this country” if he pursues an end to fluoridation.
Regarding dentists’ long-standing support of fluoridation causing a decline in cavities, Rosato noted, “Ask yourself if you know of any other profession that advocates for something that decreases business.”
On the other hand, Rosato supported some of Kennedy’s interests in nutrition, including cutbacks in sweeteners. “For years we have advocated for removing sugar from schools,” he said. “We will look for common areas to work with him … if he is confirmed.”
Original article online at: https://www.concordmonitor.com/dental-president-national-new-hampshire-concord-58790032