The Canadian Dental Care Plan starts next month — but many dentists are reluctant to participate

The Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP) is set to start providing coverage next month — but it's not clear that enough dentists will enrol to provide care to the 1.6 million seniors that have signed up already.

Health Canada would not provide CBC News with a figure for how many oral health care providers have registered for the CDCP since applications opened on March 11. The department will only say "thousands" have signed on.

According to their national associations, there are approximately 26,500 dentists, 1,700 independent hygienists and 2,400 denturists practising in Canada — 30,500 in total.

"I'm hearing that the sign-up is slow," said Dr. Heather Carr, president of the Canadian Dental Association. "I do not think it's as high as we would hope in order for this plan to be successful."

The $13 billion Canadian Dental Care Plan, announced in December, will provide low- and middle-income Canadian residents with dental insurance if they don't have private coverage. The national program will eventually apply to one quarter of Canadians, but Ottawa is rolling out eligibility gradually, starting with seniors first.

Some seniors approved for coverage are finding out their dentists aren't participating.

"I was annoyed. I was really cross," said Karen Trimingham, 82, who lives in Yarmouth, N.S., where she's seen the same dentist for 16 years. "I didn't think they'd refuse me because I'm a regular customer."

Trimingham said she doesn't want to drive hours from her rural community to find a dentist in another city who is signed up for the program.

"I've just got to continue paying. I'll just go and have the minimal amount done with the dentist I've got," she said. "Instead of having this tooth replaced that I lost a couple of months ago, I'll just go with the gap."

Victoria, B.C. senior Joanne Thibault, 68, said her dentist won't take part either.

"It really irks me that the federal government came out and announced a dental plan, but they didn't do their homework to get the thing in place so that my dentist could be part of it," she said.  

"I'm not abandoning my dentist. I just want the federal government to do their job and to get this sorted out with them so that she can do her job."

Canada's dentists, hygienists and denturists have broadly supported the idea of a national public dental care plan, which they say will help provide essential oral health care to people most in need who otherwise would have to pay out of pocket.

But the presidents of some provincial dentist associations — who are practising dentists themselves — have told CBC News they aren't planning to offer the program in their own dental offices.