Image by Getty \/ Futurism<\/p>\n
As most of us in the United States are well aware, the US healthcare system is a nightmarish labyrinth of profit-seeking middlemen, kafkaesque corporate bureaucracy, and insurance-inflated costs.<\/p>\n
Adding to the noxious mix is the lucrative field of private equity \u2014 a financial industry that earns its dough by buying private companies and selling their assets piecemeal, kind of like a junk dealer<\/a>. Research has shown that when private equity gets involved in healthcare, patients experience worse care<\/a> than they had before. That\u2019s unfortunate, because private equity has rapidly increased its collection of facilities like nursing homes<\/a>, rehabilitation centers<\/a>, and EMS agencies<\/a> in recent years.<\/p>\n And now they\u2019re also coming for your teeth.<\/p>\n New reporting by The Lever<\/a> dove deep into the dental industry to shine light on the growing private equity problem vexing\u00a0dental professionals, and the dire consequences facing their patients.<\/p>\n Though few, if any, aspects of American healthcare are safe from the predatory practice, The Lever notes that dentistry is now their biggest target, with 161 private equity deals<\/a> impacting the field in 2024 alone.<\/p>\n Broadly, patients of these facilities experienced overdiagnosis, lower quality procedures, understaffing, and overly inflated bills compared to private-practice dentistry, as the\u00a0private equity-owned\u00a0firms skirt state laws<\/a> in order to reduce costs \u2014 thereby driving revenue.<\/p>\n “A lot of small dental practices have been bought up by big corporations,” Adelena Brannan, a dental hygienist of 12 years, told The Lever. Brannan described the practice as “McDonald\u2019s for teeth” \u2014 where patients are treated as drive-thru customers, and their dental needs as orders to be filled as fast as possible.<\/p>\n A prime example is the infamous corporation Kool Smiles, a children\u2019s dental outfit boasting over 120 locations<\/a> throughout the US. In 2018, Kool Smiles was forced to pay $24 million after the US federal government charged it was prescribing unnecessary surgical procedures on children in order to rake in Medicare payments<\/a>.<\/p>\n That rapacious pursuit for profit can have deadly consequences. In 2022, Kool Smiles dentists performed root canals and put crowns on six baby teeth belonging to a two-year-old<\/a>, leading to his eventual death due to “brain damage caused by lack of oxygen.”<\/p>\n