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Newhall Dentist Develops Nationwide Affordable Dental Plan

While the nation prepares for the sweeping changes that the Affordable Healthcare Act (“Obamacare“) will bring to its healthcare system, Santa Clarita dentist Dr. Dell Goodrick has decided to do something tangible to help individuals and families afford quality dental care.  

“More than 60% of Americans don’t have dental insurance,” said Goodrick, whose practice is based in Newhall. “This means that a large majority of people here locally delay dental procedures, which is not good for dental health or overall healthcare.”  


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The program that Goodrick helped develop is called QDP – Quality Dental Plan (QualityDentalPlan.com), which is now rolling out nationally. The program may prove to be a model for healthcare reform across the board.  

Dr. Dell Goodrick“I sat down with my front office team and saw how much money was going to insurance companies, claim forms administration and collections costs,” said Goodrick. “We also calculated how many hundreds of extra dollars families were spending by not catching potential problems that we could have found during a simple annual dental exam. When I began to run these numbers with other dentists around America, we found that we could offer our patients free initial exams, free exam x-rays, free teeth cleanings and as much as 20% off our usual fee structure simply by creating our own in-house dental savings plan.”

A recent report by CBS News cited by Goodrick points to dental decay as a contributing factor in seemingly unrelated problems, including employment issues, childhood school absences, and heart disease.

“Even here in Santa Clarita we see kids in our practice who are in chronic pain because a simple cavity was not caught in time,” said Goodrick. “That cavity was not caught because the parents perceived that they could not afford dental care. By the time the pain for the child is unbearable, the cost of solving the problem has escalated two or three times over what it would have been if caught a year earlier.”

Goodrick says he is proud of what he and the other dentists have created. “This one simple step has allowed us to eliminate the insurance company middleman, and those savings are going right back into the pockets of folks here locally. I’m really proud to be part of this forward looking cost-savings movement. This is a great system for dental care everywhere.”

For more information about QDP, visit its FAQ page.


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Newhall Dentist Develops Nationwide Affordable Dental Plan

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