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“I think that dentistry is about more than just about looking at people’s teeth and putting fillings in. You develop relationships with people,” Chambers said.

“It seems that when these corporations take over, the dentist is no more than a cog in the machine.”

Corporate dentistry is a relatively new phenomenon in Canada, although optometry and pharmacy both went down this road long ago. The Canadian Dental Association estimates only two per cent of practices in this country are owned by corporate players.

But that figure is rising, and that’s a big concern for Nadean Burkett, a dental management specialist who started her career nearly 40 years ago as a chair-side assistant.

Photo by Christopher Furlong / Getty Images

“Everything that is happening will have some kind of effect on the quality of patient care, access to patient care, and the patient’s right to choose,” she said.

Burkett began looking into the issue when she heard that the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan had cashed out its investment in the Toronto Maple Leafs and bought a $1.3-billion controlling share in the U.S. firm Heartland Dental.

Only dentists are allowed to own dental practices in Canada and most parts of the U.S., so Burkett was left scratching her head: How was Heartland allowed to operate 375 American clinics?

“What I learned was … they have what they call nominee dentists, which are registered with the regulatory body as the owner of that practice,” she said.

“They will buy the assets out of a company owned by a dentist, stripping it clean of all of the assets, but the (nominee dentist) still stays registered with the college.”