Blockchain technology is taking the world by storm and it is a certainty that it will eventually impact every single industry of the world. This does include the dental industry.
For most people, the dental industry and blockchain do not have anything in common. But, in reality, you can easily take advantage of blockchain to improve operations.
The entire business world keeps evolving as internet-powered technology is embraced. There are new ways in which operations happen, including blockchain adoption. Blockchain is practically a huge list of records. It is similar to the traditional ledger since it records transactions, but it is entirely different when it comes to capabilities.
The main difference is that blockchain ledgers continually update, with all information available on a network or a peer-to-peer level.
The Dentacoin Solution
Blockchain keeps getting embraced by the healthcare industry as it is used to secure patient data and exchange data. Patient medial records, billing, claims, and drug companies can tap into the blockchain to update information. And the best thing about it is that this is possible in a real-time setting.
In 2017, the first upgrade in the dental industry with the use of blockchain technology appeared, with the development of Dentacoin. Dentacoin uses blockchain technology to secure transactions between dentists and patients, and all other market participants.
How The System Works
The patient pays a small fee (usually a monthly one) to Dentacoin. This is done through the use of smart contracts. In exchange, the participating dentists offer ongoing treatment. Dentists receive payments as ongoing basic income.
Patients end up incentivized and can take care of their teeth as they use tokens received with the use of a Dentacoin app. This platform is utilized to share patient feedback and market research. Use is even possible in the dental insurance industry.
According to the CAQH (Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare):
“While dental providers continue to file more insurance claims electronically and submit claims electronically, adoption of electronic clinical processes by dental providers remains low, even though eliminating costly manual transactions represents huge potential cost savings.”
The dental industry is behind the medical industry at the moment. However, it is making constant progress.
Blockchain application in dentistry is very beneficial for providers and patients. Having a blockchain-based decentralized system will make patient data available for everyone interested in real time. This includes payments and treatment history. Patients know everything about the work done on them and there is no longer a need to fill in a form every single time they go to the dentist. Also, dentists, end up with greater practice efficiencies.
Dentacoin is just one of the solutions considered. There can be future cryptocurrencies that will help. Regardless of what is actually used, the simple fact is that blockchain cannot be altered and is beneficial for dentistry as a whole, together with insurance claims.