Dubai: Now, call a dentist to your home; get treatment in 45 minutes
We may have seen professional organisers setting up houses for house parties or parlour attendants installing salon equipment for beauty treatments, but in Dubai we will also soon have a dentist and his team knocking on their doors, making their house into a pop-up clinic.
Furthermore, it is soon possible for patients to track their physician’s arrival at home on time just like a delivery man tracks his delivery. The new at-home dentist company — which is currently hiring more doctors — has licensed professionals working from 8am to midnight daily so you can have dental care at home.
Dentists will reach in 45 minutes or as per appointment to give individualized care at your doorstep.
‘Our doctors will be there in 30 to 45 minutes, once they call us. You'll need 26 minutes on average to reach everywhere in Dubai. Our DHA dentists, equipped with modern Swiss portable dental technology, provide you a complete mouth treatment, teeth cleaning and whitening, emergency dental services, paediatric and elderly dental care, fillings, crowns, simple extractions. We have already had a soft launch and will roll it out completely next week," said Pavan Sharma, CEO and MD of First Response Healthcare on Wednesday.
How does it work?
This service removes the waiting, he said, frees people of their suffering much more quickly, and could even reduce traffic on the roads.
It is a doctor, nurse and driver, all from a special car. The car has an extensive medical supplies, medicines and point-of-care diagnosis tools. And it has everything from an ECG machine to an oxygen tank and a pulse oximeter, so all the instruments are always at hand.
"Everything that needs to be installed in the patient’s home — even the recumbent dental chair — takes about 15 minutes for the team. "Our members pack two suitcases, take everything out, and stack it all up to have an effective medical area," he said.
According to Sharma, some surgeries take more infrastructure and the patient’s condition is evaluated carefully before starting treatment.
"If it’s a patient with diabetes, heart disease, leukemia or blood disorders, you need a better infrastructure. What’s really on your mind when you have to do anything with your teeth is control the flow of blood. About 70 per cent of dental work can be done at home without danger, and the remaining 30 per cent in a controlled clinic setting, which is decided after assessing the patient’s state. We get blood tests and do other studies as necessary before treatment.
Prolonged operations like extraction of wisdom teeth or implants that require surgery of advanced level are not undertaken since it can cause problems.
‘But simple cases such as root canals, extraction of mobile or uncomplicated teeth, and children’s or senior’s extractions can be done at home,’ he said. These are done according to the DHA standards with utmost hygiene and infection control."
In the UAE, last year a foldable dental clinic that was borne of a car became the first government health service in the Middle East to provide ‘at-home’ care to patients.
This UAE Health Services (EHS) mobile dental service has been particularly convenient for those patients who cannot make it to a dental office because of certain medical or physical reasons.
"Healthcare delivery is changing, care that comes from home has become a preferred choice just like the delivery of food. Where leisure is about getting out and feeling better, medicine is about trouble where most prefer to rest at home. Primary care can also be transferred to households, which reduces the demand on state infrastructure since primary care doesn’t need large buildings. ‘There’s no emergency or surgery and this requires sophisticated infrastructure which usually happens only once in a lifetime,’ Sharma added.
Sharma says that they do charge a little more for at-home dentistry because of the cost and convenience.
"There are clinics where you pay Dh100–300, but we give around Dh400. This is because of travelling, and because a dentist sees only about 4 patients a day, as opposed to 30 in a clinic. Other procedures costs are as per market prices. We are insurance approved but we’re not cashless; patients pay in advance and get paid according to whether their policy will cover it. There are policies for home services, others do not.
"We have all reimbursement documentation and no insurance company has refused us, treating thousands of international patients," he said.
Comments