'Hundreds of thousands' of seniors will get subsidized dental care next month, health minister vows

Canada's health minister is promising «hundreds of thousands» of seniors will receive subsidized dental work next month under the Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP), despite a low sign-up rate among the dentists who are expected to provide that care.

«Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of seniors are going to be seen in May,» Mark Holland said this week outside of the House of Commons. «My objective is to make sure that we do get everybody seen, and that we scale up the existing system.»

Holland acknowledged there will be «bumps along the way» once the public program — which eventually is supposed to provide dental insurance to one quarter of Canadians — starts in just a few weeks. Ottawa is gradually expanding eligibility and is starting with Canadian residents 70 years of age and older; 1.7 million seniors already have registered.

«It's going to take us a little time to get to full roll-out … It's going to be a challenge to meet the entire demands of the population, and we always knew that,» Holland said.

Holland's comments come after CBC News revealed the pace of oral health-care providers signing up for the program has been slow. Dental associations argue the paperwork Ottawa will require to process insurance claims imposes an unreasonable burden on dental offices that are already struggling with a lack of administrative staff.

Holland has said an alternative method is in the works to allow dentists to bill the federal government for their services, but hasn't offered more details.

«We set up a task group to really get that administrative burden down as low as it can possibly get,» Holland said, adding that in 90 per cent of cases, the program's aim will be to have dental offices reimbursed within two days.

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