Patient Rights

The ADA has been a leader in the movement to pass legislation that will set a few basic rules to promote high-quality care and protect patients in the increasingly dollar-driven health care system. ADA member dentists have been instrumental in moving the patients' rights issue from obscurity onto the national agenda.

The House and Senate have passed different versions of patient protection, with the Senate bill featuring stronger provisions than the House bill. Conversely, the House version contains some ADA-supported provisions to increase access to insurance. Both bills cover free-standing dental plans.

The insurance and managed care industries continue to support legislation that would fail to protect all privately insured Americans against unfair delays and denials of coverage by their health plans. Some bills in prior sessions of Congress left out critical protections, such as guaranteeing people the option of choosing their own doctors or creating mechanisms to address patients' grievances against health plans. One proposal even omitted freestanding dental plans, which could have left more than 120 million dental patients without these vital protections.

The ADA will continue to lobby for the enactment of bipartisan legislation to help ensure that health plans treat patients fairly and do not discriminate against dentists. It's time for Congress to work out its differences and send bipartisan legislation to the president that provides, at a minimum:

Coverage for freestanding dental plans, which account for the vast majority of Americans who have dental coverage;

Patient choice, by guaranteeing access to at least one plan with a point-of-service option that allows patients the opportunity to choose their own doctors; and

Health plan accountability, through the availability of impartial, external review and by holding plans accountable when their decisions to delay or deny care harm patients. Congress can hold health plans accountable without exposing employers to undue liability.

The ADA will continue to support those patients' rights bills that address these fundamental needs.

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