A new study has looked at the media coverage and the implications for the dentistry, particularly in terms of societal attitudes towards dental health and the dental profession.

The recent trend of dental practices promoting the use of superannuation for dental treatment has become a hot topic issue in the dental profession over the past few years. From $108 million in 2020-21 to $526 million last year, the scale of use in dentistry far exceeds the other areas where superannuation is being withdrawn on compassionate grounds.

Now, a new study Supercharged Smiles: A Discourse Analysis of Australian Media Coverage of Funding Dental Care Through Superannuation published in the Australian Dental Journal has looked at how the media has reported this phenomenon. Professor Alex Holden from the University of Sydney examined 36 media articles written by 25 different authors across 18 media platforms published between 2022 to 2025.

Across all the media articles that were reviewed, there was a predominantly negative discourse which highlights the ethical, social, and professional challenges that early superannuation release presents to dentists, patients and the broader community, as well as policy makers.

At the top level, there were three main themes that emerged from the 36 articles. The first was one of outrage at the necessity that patients were forced to use their retirement savings to pay for essential dental care, the second was about the exploitation of vulnerable patients by some dentists and the final theme was about abuse of the system by patients and dentists for elective and cosmetic dental treatment, when the guidelines are pretty clear about the criteria for use.

In this episode of the Dental As Anything podcast I talk about this new study and the narrative that has emerged about this scheme, and the importance of the dental profession in taking an active stand on this issue.