Patient, Dentist, and Trader Rights in Dental Practices

This report comprehensively examines the rights and responsibilities within the dental practice, encompassing patients, dentists, and traders. It begins by defining customer rights, emphasizing the importance of fair practices and consumer protection, and references the Australian Dental Association (ADA) guidelines and relevant legislation like the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. The report details fundamental patient rights, including the right to choose a dentist, access full information about treatment, receive proper care, maintain privacy, obtain dental records, and receive timely and ethical treatment. It also covers the rights of dentists, such as the right to participate in healthcare planning, access patient information, make treatment changes, refer patients, and maintain confidentiality. Furthermore, the report outlines the rights of traders, including fair compensation for employees, safe work environments, and the right to negotiate terms. The report highlights the importance of mutual respect and ethical conduct within the dental field, providing a thorough overview of the rights and responsibilities of all stakeholders. This report aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the rights and responsibilities of patients, dentists, and traders in the dental field.

Slide Notes

Introduction
Customer rights are defined as an agreement between the customer and a provider of the service
to protect the customer from harm. Customer rights are aimed to ensure fair and honest practices
on the part of service provider in relation to the customer. Customer rights are formed to make
the customers aware about the malpractices in the market and the ways to deal with such wrong
practices.
The Australian Dental Association (ADA) issued the rights and protections for the dental
patients. These rights are governed by federal and state laws to encourage the improvement the
health and maintain discipline in dentistry. Active relationship between the patient and the health
team is important for the good health care (Australian Dental Association, 2018).
Establishment of consumer rights
To protect the interest of consumers the competition and consumer act, 2010 was implemented.
This law was developed by the council of Australian Governments. For the protection of patients
interest in dentistry first dental act was announced on 16 December, 1887. In 1992, Australian
Dental Council was formulated to safeguard the interest of the dental patients. Patients’ bill of
rights in dentistry was formulated in 2010 by Australian Dental Board.
Customer Rights in dentistry
The fundamental rights of patients undergoing dental practices stated by the Australian Dental
Association (ADA) are:
 Right to Choose
The patient has the right to choose his own dentist. The dentist cannot deny treating the patient
because of his race, caste, sexual orientation or other discriminatory reason.The patient can also
go for the second option any time without the fear of insulting the dentist.

 Right to full information
The patient has the right to know about the prescribed treatment process and his current
condition. The patient has the right to know about the education and training of the doctor, the
complete explanation of the treatment procedure and risk associated and expected cost of the
treatment. The patient can ask questions about all these to solve his queries.
 Right to care
The patient has the right to check the arrangements for proper care and emergency treatment. It
provides the customer with a respectful treatment with a choice to decline any part of treatment
process if find unsuitable for him. And can seek for alternate treatment option (Watson, 2018).
 Right to Privacy
Everything related to the care of the patient must be held and maintained with utmost privacy.
The dentist is not allowed to share that how the patient is being treated, about the people
involved in the treatment and any other health care operations of the dental procedure.
 Right to obtain dental records
The patient can ask for the copy of his dental records. The provider is responsible for
maintaining and securing the records of the patients (Dentistry Guide, 2018).
 Ethical and moral conduct
The dentist and all his or her staff is responsible to treat the patient with courtesy, respect and
highest professional.
 Right to Timely Treatment
The patient has right that his treatment will be completed in a timely manner (Dental Council,
2018).
 Right to dignity

The patient has the right to be treated with dignity and independence.
 Support person
The dental patients are having a right to have a support person with him or her at most times.
 Right to complain
The patients have right to complain against the misbehaving or improper treatment of the dentist
or his staff. If the patient want to complain he/she needs to contact the grievance department of
dental board of Australia or Australian Dental Council.
 Right to understand
The dentist can be asked to explain the treatment procedure to the patient in the language he can
understand and the merits and demerits of the treatment protocols.
 Infection control
The patient has the right to expect that proper infection and sterilization controls are used by the
dental team members.
 Right to know about the treatment options
The patient can ask the dentist to explain about the various treatment options irrespective
insurance benefit coverage.
 Right to understand the fee
The patient has the right to know the fees required to be paid and the how the payment is to be
made. The patient should also be informed about the change in treatments due to changing
conditions and also the impact of such changes on fees (Dentistry, 2018).
 Right to refuse research treatment
 Right to ensure that complaint dealt appropriately.

 Right to contact friends, family for support and to discuss problems (Law Handbook,
2018).
Rights of Dentists
Mutual respect between the patient and the doctor is important for the smooth operations of the
healthcare activities. Doctor bill of rights states few rights to the doctor that are stated below:
 Right to participation
Dentists have the right to actively participate in development and improvement of healthcare
plan.
 Right to information
The dentist has the right to get timely information regarding his or her patient. They should be
informed about any change in the patient’s condition, change in patient’s psychological status,
home environment and his response to care. The dentist can ask the patient for the information
required for their care and ask the patients to fill out their honestly (Greenwood, 2018).
 Right to change
The doctor has the right to make changes regarding diagnosis and medications. They have the
right to select the kind of treatment in Mutual Corporation with the patient.
 Right to refer
The dentist has the right to refer the patient to other doctor with a statement of cause.
 Right to set up the practice model
The doctor has the right to set up criteria, guidelines for treating their patients (Central Coast
Home Health, 2018).
 Right to confidentiality
They have the right to maintain the confidentiality about the treatment procedures.

 Right to choose
Except the cases of emergency the dentist can choose whom they will serve and the environment
in which they will provide treatment. The doctors have the right to practice in the interest of
patient only regardless of the interest of insurance companies or other third party (The
Australian, 2018).
 The doctors have the right to terminate any adverse relationship with the patient.
 The dentists have the right to learn and train regardless of any kind of discrimination and
without physical and mental abuse.
 Right to humane working hours
The doctors have the right to change working hours in active patient care, charting or completion
of paper work.
 They have the right to practice dental activities with reasonable compensation (Parker,
2017).
Right to traders
 Right to fair trading platform
The suppliers or traders have the right to deal in fair work environment free of any kind of
discrimination.
 Right to negotiation
The traders have the right to negotiate the terms and conditions and the price expectation with
the customer (PetroCard, 2007).
 Right to speak
The traders have the right to speak their demands or expectations in a direct, open and fair
manner.

 Right to withdrawal
The trader has the right to withdraw himself from any contract if found uncomfortable or
unprofitable for the business.
 Right to use trading methodology
The traders can make the trading methodology or strategies by their own based on the facts and
the trading requirements.
 The traders also have the right to get their trades completed with less or no shipping
charges (Traders Advocate, 2018).
Right to people involved in the clinic
 Right of fair compensation
The employees working in clinic have the right to get fair compensation for their work(Ionidea,
2018).
 Right to safe work environment
Nurses or other people involved in clinic have the right to get safe and healthy work environment
in which they work. The work environment should be motivating and friendly.
 Right to be treated with respect
In the workplace all the employees have the right to be treated with respect. The workplace
should be free of verbal or physical abuse (Olin, 2011).
 Right to leave
The employees have the right to leave the job with dignity.
 Right to equal opportunity
The employees have the right to get the equal opportunity to succeed without any discrimination
based on their caste, race or origin (Workplace Fairness, 2018).

 Right to negotiate
The nurses and other staff has the right to negotiate the conditions of their employment.
 Right to work/life balance
The employees have the right to get a stress free environment to maintain work/ life balance.
 Right to act in professional standard
The medical staff has the right to work in legally authorized scope of practice (Find Law, 2018).
References
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