Hygienists perform more tasks than simply scale and polish teeth. Currently patients are probed at every visit in our office no matter if they are perio I II III or IV. This helps determine if they are "healthy" or need future perio treatment. So who will be probing patients at each visit? Will each dentist probe prior to every class one perio patient to determine who can clean the patient's teeth? I doubt that a dentist would take the time at each visit and for each patient to do a full probe.

I believe Rita Sheaves did a wonderful job stating the importance of a dental hygienist: "I believe that allowing DA II's to scale would be jeopardizing the health and well-being of all patients.  Not only will the patient's periodontal health potentially suffer, but the patient's overall health could be in jeopardy as well.  During these procedures, a well-educated hygienist looks for any signs of oral cancer, nutritional and pharmacological factors, and other systemic conditions that can contribute to the patient's health status. By detecting these contributing factors early and by treating accordingly, periodontal status can be maintained and other problems can be warded off before they become serious.  By allowing individuals with far less education to perform scaling, this would limit the complete treatment received by the  patient.  Even though the dentist may be following up with each patient, he/she does not have the time to spend examining all of the above mentioned aspects. Because a person is considered a Perio I, does this mean that he/she is entitled to less care??? I think not"

Several dentists are in favor of assistant scaling because they feel it will reduce the cost of dental treatment to the patients. Will dentist then reduce their prophy fee for all class I perio patients? I doubt this. Also insurance companies will use this as an excuse to reduce the amount they are will to pay out for a routine cleaning. Not only will you have to take up a chair in your office for the assistant, now you are getting paid less for the prophy they are providing.

Allowing dental assistant scaling would be a step backward for patient care and dentistry as a profession. No to assistant scaling!