I'm not sure if the government realises the amount of money lost every year in the dental industry.
Today most of the crown and bridge work is sent to China for manufacturing for nothing and I believe that the public/ authorities do not realise.
Everyday bags and bags of impressions are sent via couriers, most of the time transiting through large australian based companies.
The work is manufactured in large labs overseas and sent back within a week or 2 approx.
I believe that being less than $1000, the work doesn't get taxed.
Not only this is killing a complete industry of dental technology as the local dental technicians cannot keep up to date with the ridiculous prices of production in China but who is benefiting for it?
The government doesn't get any tax with the import, the dental suppliers accross Australia which have very strict restrictions to follow (TGA) cannot compete, and yet the public is still paying the same price here at their dentist!!!
This is a very discussing situation and I think that the government should get involve in finding a solution to make everyone happy:
1. May be impose a law that the dentist have to reveal the origin of production of his work, accordingly a choice of price.
2. Ensuring that these labs in Asia is using the same TGA materials that are imposed here.
3. Tax the products when coming back from Asia as we are talking about people's health here...
4. May be health insurances would also offer different rabates depending on the origin of manufacturing.
5. For such a skilled industry, the government should be keeping a tight control. We should be proud to offer quality health services, not cheap Chinese products (I'm not saying that the work is not good) but just cheap.
I just hope that this idea will trigger some further investigation and hopefully work towards a better solution for everyone.
The Board considers this idea to be outside the scope of Sounding Board.