Almost 2.4 million dental vouchers (cheques-dentista) remained unused in 2021, a record breaking amount of wastage. Although 2021 was the year with the most dental vouchers issued (711,000), 41% of the vouchers (292,000) remained unused, according to data included in the NHS Transparency Portal and released by the Portuguese Dental Association (OMD).
According to the OMD’s chairman, Miguel Pavão, “the usage rate is very low and has worsened in recent years, which shows that this project, which was very innovative at the time, has been undermined, and has not evolved”, as can be read on the OMD’s website.
To justify the argument that in Portugal “there isn’t much interest in investing in oral health”, Miguel Pavão reminds us that the value of the dental voucher was reduced from 40 to 35 euros during the years of the troika, and hasn’t been changed since – not even during the pandemic, despite the additional expense of individual protection equipment. “There has been no reflection on the model of the dental voucher, no evaluation, no pause for thought,” he adds.
