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.
Adding to the noxious mix is the lucrative field of private equity — a financial industry that earns its dough by buying private companies and selling their assets piecemeal, kind of like a junk dealer. Research has shown that when private equity gets involved in healthcare, patients experience worse care than they had before. That’s unfortunate, because private equity has rapidly increased its collection of facilities like nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, and EMS agencies in recent years.
And now they’re also coming for your teeth.
New reporting by The Lever dove deep into the dental industry to shine light on the growing private equity problem vexing dental professionals, and the dire consequences facing their patients.
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 impacting the field in 2024 alone.
Broadly, patients of these facilities experienced overdiagnosis, lower quality procedures, understaffing, and overly inflated bills compared to private-practice dentistry, as the private equity-owned firms skirt state laws in order to reduce costs — thereby driving revenue.
"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’s for teeth" — where patients are treated as drive-thru customers, and their dental needs as orders to be filled as fast as possible.
A prime example is the infamous corporation Kool Smiles, a children’s dental outfit boasting over 120 locations 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.
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, leading to his eventual death due to "brain damage caused by lack of oxygen."
Another investigation highlighted in the reporting by KFF Health News and CBS found that private equity-controlled dental chains were pressing their patients to get costly dental implants, even when they weren’t medically necessary, in a practice that exposed patients to exorbitant bills, surgical complications, and ultimately deprived them of their natural teeth for life.
In one case, a patient of the company ClearChoice told journalists that a "salesperson" — not a dentist — suggested she borrow money from family members to afford an implant. Before she received care, the patient said she ultimately had to sign up for a loan and pass a credit check.
"They’ve sold a lot of [implants], and some of it unnecessarily, and too often done negligently, without having the dentists who are doing it have the necessary training and experience," Edwin Zinman, a dental malpractice attorney and former periodontist, told KFF. "It’s for five simple letters: M-O-N-E-Y."
More on healthcare: For-Profit Hospital Chain Reportedly Left Patient Lying in Pool of His Own Blood
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