Funding gap forcing Australians to drain super for dental prosthetics

Australians with oral cancer are having to pay as much as $50,000 out-of-pocket to replace their teeth or go without them, because of a gap in the nation's healthcare system.

Surgeons and advocates have told [the ABC's] 7.30 [program] about a complex and inequitable process, where cancer patients have become collateral damage because of the government's reluctance to open a "Pandora's box" when it comes to broader dental funding.

As a result, patients are often being forced to make an "unthinkable choice" — remortgage their homes or drain their superannuation to fund dental prosthetics — or forgo them entirely.

"I don't think it's fair that patients need to make that choice," said Jonathan Clark, director of head and neck research at Chris O'Brien Lifehouse hospital.

Professor Clark said while some oral prosthetics and the cost of fitting them for mouth cancer patients were covered by public or private funding, typically there were no subsidies for an essential part of the process: replacement teeth.

(excerpt courtesy and (c) ABC News)