The Association of Quebec Dental Surgeons reaffirmed its ultimatum to the Provincial government that if a deal is not in place by Thursday, dentists, province-wide, will abandon the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ).
RAMQ covers dental care for children under 10 and people living on social assistance. If dentists refuse to accept payment from RAMQ, it will mean that parents and people on welfare will have to start paying for dental care out of pocket.
Further complicating things, despite the fact that by late August it could be that only a small minority of dentists in the province will accept payment from the public system, the fact that a public system exists, makes children under age 10 ineligible for private coverage.
That means that children with parents that have private insurance from their employer that covers dependants will still be uninsured.
“We don’t want to pull out,” said Dr. Serge Langlois, President of the Quebec Dental Surgeons Association. “We think that M. Couillard could solve this problem.”
Dr. Langlois accused Health Minister Gaetan Barrette not taking the concerns of his association seriously at a press conference on Tuesday morning, asking the Premier to step in and take over the negotiations.
An offer given to the Association by the Health Ministry would see dentists pay decrease by 12 per cent by the end of the contract in 2020, according to Langlois, something he is not willing to accept.
“They can’t accept a loss of remuneration like M. Barrette offers,” Langlois said. “Our members always provide quality dental care to those people for 40 years now. They want just remuneration.”
Minister Barrette’s office responded in a statement saying his office is open to continuing to negotiate and is sad that Dr. Langlois would spread erroneous information in the public square during the process of negotiating.
Quebec dentists have been working in the public system since 2015 without a collective bargaining agreement and will officially give 30 days of notice to the government that they will no longer participate in the public insurance system if an agreement is not in place by July 26th.
That puts the deadline to have your kid’s teeth checked on the public dime at around August 25th.
Emergency procedures will still be covered with or without an agreement in place.