Northwell Health and ProHealth Dental partner to bridge medicine and dentistry
ProHealth Dental’s Oceanside location on Long Beach Road. Credit: ProHealth Dental
Northwell Health and ProHealth Dental said Tuesday they have formed a strategic agreement to connect Northwell patients to dentists.
Northwell physicians will be able to refer patients who need dental care to one of ProHealth Dental’s 16 offices on Long Island, in New York City and Westchester County. In turn, dentists treating patients who need specialty services to treat conditions such as oral cancers can refer them to Northwell clinics.
ProHealth’s goal is to “change the public’s perception of dentistry and oral health and help break down the historical and illogical barrier between medicine and dentistry,” Norton Travis, ProHealth Dental’s CEO, said in an interview.
For example, studies have found links between periodontal disease, which affects the gums, and other chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease and dementia, according to a report published by the National Institutes of Health. The report notes “clear causation has been difficult to establish.”
“There’s so many oral health problems that lead to really serious overall health problems,” said Dr. David Hirsch, senior vice president of dental medicine at Northwell. “ … We need to prevent some of these oral health problems, and if we do that, we can decrease the amount of severe medical problems.”
Hirsch noted patients with heart valve disease who have poor oral health are at risk of getting endocarditis, a life-threatening condition that can be caused by bacterial infection. “That’s a totally preventable condition,” he said.
Northwell’s expansion in dental medicine and partnership with ProHealth Dental is part of the health system’s effort “to promote a holistic approach to total health,” Michael Dowling, Northwell’s CEO, said in a statement.
Northwell Health has its own dental medicine practices in Bethpage, Garden City, Great Neck, Glen Cove, Manhasset, Manhattan, New Hyde Park and Staten Island. Partnering with ProHealth will expand the number of communities, where Northwell can connect patients to a dentist both on Long Island elsewhere in the region.
“If you think about how many millions of people are in these communities, even if we had practices everywhere, it’d be impossible to serve every patient in the community,” Hirsch said. “We want to be able to partner with some like-minded people and collaborate.”
In the future, that could include more easily sharing patient medical or dental records between the two organizations, Hirsch said. “That’s where health care is heading,” he said.
It helps that Northwell has already expressed its commitment to dental medicine through its existing locations and graduate education for medical residents, Travis said. The health system has about 60 medical residents across the system training in areas such as oral and maxillofacial surgery and pediatric dental medicine.
The agreement is a clinical one; neither entity paid the other to enter the partnership, Travis said.
Northwell is the latest medical provider to enter a pact with ProHealth Dental. Its other affiliates include Catholic Health, Mount Sinai Health System and Westmed Medical Group, as well as, ProHealth Physicians, CareMount Medical and Riverside Medical Group, all three of which are owned by UnitedHealth Group’s Optum. The two ProHealth entities, which share the same founder, are now separate organizations.
For ProHealth Dental, the agreement is an opportunity to connect to new patients through Northwell, the state’s largest health system with about 900 locations around the New York metro area.
“You have to make dentistry convenient to patients,” Travis said. “Between cost, fear and other factors, there’s too many existing barriers for people to choose not to go to the dentist. Convenience, both in terms of location and hours, is a must."
Northwell Health and ProHealth Dental said Tuesday they have formed a strategic agreement to connect Northwell patients to dentists.
Northwell physicians will be able to refer patients who need dental care to one of ProHealth Dental’s 16 offices on Long Island, in New York City and Westchester County. In turn, dentists treating patients who need specialty services to treat conditions such as oral cancers can refer them to Northwell clinics.
ProHealth’s goal is to “change the public’s perception of dentistry and oral health and help break down the historical and illogical barrier between medicine and dentistry,” Norton Travis, ProHealth Dental’s CEO, said in an interview.
For example, studies have found links between periodontal disease, which affects the gums, and other chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease and dementia, according to a report published by the National Institutes of Health. The report notes “clear causation has been difficult to establish.”
“There’s so many oral health problems that lead to really serious overall health problems,” said Dr. David Hirsch, senior vice president of dental medicine at Northwell. “ … We need to prevent some of these oral health problems, and if we do that, we can decrease the amount of severe medical problems.”
Hirsch noted patients with heart valve disease who have poor oral health are at risk of getting endocarditis, a life-threatening condition that can be caused by bacterial infection. “That’s a totally preventable condition,” he said.
Northwell’s expansion in dental medicine and partnership with ProHealth Dental is part of the health system’s effort “to promote a holistic approach to total health,” Michael Dowling, Northwell’s CEO, said in a statement.
Northwell Health has its own dental medicine practices in Bethpage, Garden City, Great Neck, Glen Cove, Manhasset, Manhattan, New Hyde Park and Staten Island. Partnering with ProHealth will expand the number of communities, where Northwell can connect patients to a dentist both on Long Island elsewhere in the region.
“If you think about how many millions of people are in these communities, even if we had practices everywhere, it’d be impossible to serve every patient in the community,” Hirsch said. “We want to be able to partner with some like-minded people and collaborate.”
In the future, that could include more easily sharing patient medical or dental records between the two organizations, Hirsch said. “That’s where health care is heading,” he said.
It helps that Northwell has already expressed its commitment to dental medicine through its existing locations and graduate education for medical residents, Travis said. The health system has about 60 medical residents across the system training in areas such as oral and maxillofacial surgery and pediatric dental medicine.
The agreement is a clinical one; neither entity paid the other to enter the partnership, Travis said.
Northwell is the latest medical provider to enter a pact with ProHealth Dental. Its other affiliates include Catholic Health, Mount Sinai Health System and Westmed Medical Group, as well as, ProHealth Physicians, CareMount Medical and Riverside Medical Group, all three of which are owned by UnitedHealth Group’s Optum. The two ProHealth entities, which share the same founder, are now separate organizations.
For ProHealth Dental, the agreement is an opportunity to connect to new patients through Northwell, the state’s largest health system with about 900 locations around the New York metro area.
“You have to make dentistry convenient to patients,” Travis said. “Between cost, fear and other factors, there’s too many existing barriers for people to choose not to go to the dentist. Convenience, both in terms of location and hours, is a must."
Jonathan LaMantia covers residential real estate and other business news on Long Island. He previously covered the business of health care for Crain's New York Business.
