Hundreds of thousands of dental patients face payments of up to €80 for a filling unless talks next week resolve a five-month row between the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs and the Irish Dental Association.
The Department has threatened to cease payments covered by PRSI contributions to dentists who charge above the top-up rate prescribed under the Dental Treatment Benefit Scheme. If this were to happen, patients would be liable for both the amount covered by the Department and the additional cost charged by their dentist.
Currently the Department pays €26 for each filling and the dentist is allowed to charge a maximum top-up rate of €13.50.
The limit on the top-up rate chargeable by dentists for fillings and other treatments is at the centre of the dispute.
Dentists in the Irish Dental Association have complained that the fees payable to them under the Dental Treatment Benefit Scheme do not reflect the true cost of their services.
Last March, 91 per cent of Irish Dental Association members participating in the scheme voted to allow their members to charge for the full "shortfall" of services. In the case of a filling this is €34-€54, according to Dr Bernard Murphy of the IDA.
This week they accused the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan, of using the dispute as an "opportunity to implement a severe cut in public spending", a charge which she denied.
On Monday her Department agreed to defer the threat to cease payments under the dental scheme until next week, when the general secretary of the dental association has returned from leave.
Last night Dr Anthony Sweeney, chairman of the association's GP group, said that if the Department was willing to meet them, they would "relish the thought of negotiations without preconditions".
According to a Department spokeswoman last night, the Minister was hoping there would be negotiations. She said Ms Coughlan was "fully committed to the Dental Health Benefit Scheme and the Department will continue to fully honour contractual obligations under the scheme".
Dr Sweeney said if the dispute was not resolved, only a small minority of their members would be prepared to continue offering certain services under the dental scheme at the current rate. Given that 490,000 patients were treated under this scheme in 2000, this was an untenable situation.
The IDA said the fee increases offered over the 10 years of the Department's dental scheme had failed to match medical inflation.