NDA Journal 4 Letter to the Editor Providers By Steven A. Saxe, DMD* The May 2022 JADA cover story referred to different types of dentists as “providers.” This reference to providers in our literature is somewhere between ignorant and deceitful. Most accurately, dentists are defined as doctors or more recently, per our house of delegates, those with “an equivalent degree” in order to be members of the ADA. I am not sure what “equivalent degree” means, but in Nevada licensed dentists are designated as doctors, just like our graduation certificates iterate. Recently while teaching in UNLV SDM OMS, I was dismayed to learn that one of my students referred to his colleague as a “student provider.” Have our profession’s academics become brainwashed? Ideally our profession evolves, not devolves with terms like provider. A peripheral issue recently mentioned in Dr. Orr’s NDAJ Editorial was the ADA’s support of the term “medically necessary” in pending national legislation.1 Dentists know that everything dental is medically necessary; why do we play these games with those that do not understand the scope of dentistry and the relationship of dental disease to overall health?2 Our patients understand we are dentists, but they also understand we are doctors. Physicians should also not be referred to as providers, although the AMA has ignored the issue for so long it is much more problematic in medicine than in dentistry.3,4,5 Where did this term begin and how can it be used against us? While our role as doctors is clearly defined in state statutes, patients also unhesitatingly call their dentists doctors. The delivery of our services is being minimized by the use of the term provider. Our patients assume that
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