Support Multnomah County Dentists!
As dedicated dental professionals, we take immense pride in serving our community and ensuring that all individuals have access to high-quality dental care. However, recent developments within our County's Dental Program have left us deeply concerned about the future of the Dental Program and the level of care we can offer to our patients.
Click here to send a letter to Multnomah County Commissioners and tell them to support a fair contract for Multnomah County Dentists that puts patient care BEFORE profits!
What should Multnomah County Dentists expect during a strike?
In prior years we were asked to sacrifice and do more with less. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we served as essential workers providing aerosol producing procedures, without any extra time in our schedules to deal with the constraints COVID caused. Our occupation placed us at high risk of contracting COVID prior to the availability of vaccines and effective treatment. In 2017, we took on additional workload when we transitioned from a 60/60 patient schedule to a 50/50 patient schedule. In 2022 we saw the layoff of Dentists and the management increased the workload of 0.75FTE Dentists by 20 percent, increasing patient exam visits, without additional treatment visit access for the increased patient pool.
Despite those sacrifices in previous years, management’s bargaining team has made multiple proposals that will increase our patient workload and demands on our time without any accompanying administrative time or compensation. Our members believe in the mission of making dental services accessible to all and we believe that the management’s demands undermine that mission because it will increase burnout among dental practitioners and ultimately hurt the patients we serve. The County’s position and statements to us not only fail to acknowledge our dedication but also undermine our ability to provide the highest standard of care. Quality patient care should always be our top priority, and we fear that the current trajectory threatens our ability to deliver the best possible care. Adding to our workload without providing administrative time, compensation that is comparable to the market, and adequate resources is destructive to our top priority of quality patient care.
We understand the challenges of maintaining a strong social safety net healthcare system. Rather than helping us meet these challenges by building an atmosphere of inclusion and teamwork, Integrated Clinical Services leadership continues to openly criticize us in front of our colleagues in Primary Care and Pharmacy for not generating more revenue without identifying to them that the underlying cause of this problem is the current Care Oregon reimbursement model that doesn’t adequately cover costs of dental care. Consistent with this pattern, they have not identified or shown a willingness to accept any sacrifices themselves, and are only focused on asking more from us.