Cosmetic

Once upon a time, living with wear-and-tear from age and neglect was an unavoidable reality in the mouths of maturing adults.

Reversing what nature had wrought was an indulgence. Only the rich, the famous, the vain eccentric were exempt. And so older folks accepted the slow degenerationyellow, worn-down nubs and dark gaps from teeth ravaged by disease and decay. Even function suffered. Biting an apple, articulate speech were other possible problems.

Enter the restorative power of modern dentistry!

“Now the dental arsenal easily vanquishes the common enemies of oral health,” says Dr. Sherman H. Telis, of the Washington Center for Dentistry in Washington, DC. “The marvels of gum therapy, crowns, bridges, veneers and implants have the power to restore what used to be an accepted part of aging of the mouth.”

Restorative dentistryoften coupled with cosmetic dentistryis now the province of the average dental consumer. Patients are seeking treatment for rehabbing swollen gums, rejuvenating unsightly broken teeth and filling gaps with “new” teeth that get “implanted” into the bone and function and look like natural teeth.

And patients know a lot about treatments from the Internet and the media. “It’s astonishing how much information there is out there for patients,” Dr. Telis says.

Here’s a rundown of restorative options:

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Insurance companies do not tend to differentiate between cosmeticians and cosmetologists when it comes to providing professional liability insurance. The difference is actually important, and should be reflected in the insurance policies provided to cover professional liability insurance.

The concept of professional liability insurance is that it is provided to professionals only. The basics of professional liability insurance is to cover malpractice or the unfortunate results of the excellent practice of well trained and certified professionals, who acquired their certification according to high standards and well-known institutions. This should have led the insurance industry to prefer the higher trained professionals, and in the beauty field these are the cosmetologists.

What differentiates between cosmeticians and cosmetologists is that a cosmetician is someone who sells or applies cosmetics or works in a beauty parlor, while cosmetologists are experts in the use of cosmetics, or beauty specialists.
Not everyone will agree with the different definitions, and we received many responses claiming that the difference is the need of the cosmeticians to improve their public image and, not necessarily the result of better education or expertise.

The first use of cosmetics was in ancient Egypt. The Egyptians created a number of cosmetics: oils, herbs, fragrances for both beauty and religious purposes. Both women and men would use kohl (a black powder kept in a small jar) to outline their eyes and eyebrows. Throughout history, there has been a constant, consistent increase in the use of cosmetics, and the cosmetician’s profession was increasingly in demand, with ever-growing status for not just a professional, but for an artist.

The increase in the cost of cosmetics along with the increase in public awareness to consumerism has created the need for protection of the cosmetician from public lawsuit in more complex ways than ever.

Professional liability insurance used to be the main answer to the needs of the cosmetician, but nowadays, this excellent coverage provides only a fraction of the protection required by the cosmetician of the 21st century: The use of applied products and the development of consumer protection laws has elevated the need to provide protection from lawsuits involving the products used (and many cosmeticians still use self-made products, and cannot rely on product liability of a manufacturer). The emergence of hair and beauty salons has created the need to include public or general liability as well, and in the age of gender awareness, a certain protection is required against discrimination and gender harassment.

It is an opportunity, both for the insurance world and for the professionals in the beauty industry to recognize the potential of cosmetologists and to elevate the level of professionals in the beauty industry. Better training, regulated education and instruction, continuous updating - all these will create a better environment for cosmeticians and their customers, and will forge a broader way for protection solutions by the insurance industry.

Today, people are much more aware of their looks. They purchase expensive products, pay a lot for beauty treatments and expect their cosmetician or cosmetologist to be a highly trained and excellent practitioner. The insurance world will either go with this trend and support the enhancement of the beauty practitioners’ professionalism or will pay the price of old fashioned protection products. The one who will pay the price in this case may very well be the cosmetician who did not continue to develop professionally.

Sandy Leibovich is the Cosmetologist Occupations Customer Service Officer at Sinclair Insurance Company Sinclair offers cosmetologist and beautician public and professional liability insurance coverage including malpractice and errors and omissions.

Tags: cosmetologist, cosmetician, profession, liability, insurance, malpractice

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For those who cannot afford high-cost dental treatment, there are a number of avenues open for them in New York. Various dental plans and community services are in operation so that the poor are not deprived of necessary treatment.

Take for instance the NYU College of Dentistry. The college provides nearly 230,000 visits annually to the most multiethnic, multicultural and desperately poor patient population in the United States. They include a large numbers of Medicaid recipients who account for approximately 60,000 patient visits annually. Many other patients are treated free of charge because they are unable to pay for care, uninsured, or ineligible for Medicaid. The College provides more than $30 million annually in free care.

There are a few thousand network dentists participating in different dental plans in New York. There are also clinics that provide free or cheap treatment to those who cannot afford expensive treatment.

Lutheran Medical Center Dental, New York City Technical College, New York University David B. Kriser Dental Center, and Sunset Pediatric Dentistry are some of the places where dental treatment can be received at a low cost.

Moreover, there are a number of dental plans that offer poor patients an opportunity to receive treatment at a low price. Some of them are Aetna Dental Access, GE Wellness Plan, Patriot Plan, and UNI-CARE 200.

Some of these plans are not dental insurance policies and they do not pay directly to the providers of dental services. The plan member is obligated to pay the dentist for all dental care services that he or she receives. But the member will receive a pre-negotiated discount from the dentists listed as providers in the network, in accordance with the specific pre-negotiated discounted fee schedule.

Tags: Low Cost New York Dentists, New York Cosmetic Dentists, New York Dentist Schools, New York Dentist S

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