Infection control and hazards management. Economics of regulatory compliance

Dentistry has become subject to rapid change in office safety, including infection control and hazards management. This change includes increasingly diverse governmental regulations and compliance with such regulations, influencing the very basics of dental practice. As all practitioners are moving toward compliance, costs are increasing substantially. Various sources estimate such increases at between 12.5% and 19%, and it is doubtful whether third-party reimbursement will offset these additional costs. As practitioners plan methods for offsetting the costs of office safety, consideration should be given to providing patients oral and printed information to preclude misinterpretation of the reasons for fee escalation caused by implementation of chemical hazards communication, infection control, and waste disposal programs mandated by OSHA, EPA, and state or other regulatory authorities. The decade of the 1990s may well become the period of meeting the formidable microbiological and regulatory challenges of the 1980s.