By Editor Jim Brophy

For no dental reason, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has once again grossly raised your registration fee to $532 upon your next renewal period. The DEA claims that they are recovering ''reasonable fees'' from the dental drug author for ''activities related to the registration and control of the [manufacture, distribution and dispensing, and importation and exportation of controlled substances and chemicals]'' (brackets denote editor's words).

What part of the ''explanation'' applies to the dentist? Those of you making pills out there--or dispensing them in your office, or importing them, or exporting them--better stop now, because the rest of us are paying for these unjustified fee increases every 3 years!

Instead of levying these fees against the high-profit drug industries or the drug cost-burdened population, your federal government picks on the small, widely distributed dentist population that is relatively lobbyless in getting government off our backs!

For no practical reason, the DEA has raised the fees for dentists--fees that have no direct application to practicing dentistry, but increase the cost to the general public.

The ADA and the AMA took the DEA to court over the previous fee increases. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said that the DEA could set ''reasonable fees'' to recover the costs of ''diversion control'' (whatever that means) but must explain how they set the fees and what activities are covered. This was in response to the 2003 fee increase to $330.

The ADA Council on Government Affairs is ''considering'' a legislative initiative to provide financial relief for dentists and other affected professionals ''by curtailing future fee increases.'' ADA! Where have you been for the last 4 years while the government has been gutting the only group they feel they can bully into compliance?

And it is not just the dental community that suffers. Every governmental cost that is applied to dentists is passed on to the public as a business expense. The dental community suffers; the general population suffers - all because they want to fix their teeth! Those who do not see a dentist are not affected.

What can the lone dentist do about this government philosophy of jacking up the cost of practicing dentistry to the dentist who passes that cost on to our patients?

1. Contact the ADA, whether you are a member or not, and complain about their letting this happen to us again!They are supposed to be monitoring this type of usury government and taking some action on our behalf. Ifnot, then why pay their excessive dues?''Considering'' a legislative initiative (this is double-speak for suggesting a law) that would stop governmentfrom raising the fees so high again is akin to locking the barn after the horse is out. Get the DEA to establishactual, reasonable fees for registering the dental population to prescribe drugs that directly relate to our business--relieving patients of their pain or curing their problems.This fee is assessed to the dentist for the purposes of controlling the pharmaceutical industry. Place the onusof the fee increase where it belongs--on the drug industry! What next, DEA? Increasing the dental fee to regulatedrug movements across state lines?If someone does not do anything, as the government has proven in this instance, they will just do it again toyou--the dentist.
2. Post a sign in your office noting that all patients will be charged an extra $5 fee to cover the federal government'sunwarranted fee increases, regardless of the patients' insurance coverage, and ask them to write totheir Congressman and Senators complaining about this. The squeaky wheel does get the grease.
3. Start charging a fee for issuing a prescription, and start letting the patients know why. Many of us deal withmarginal patient situations where they do not have the money to get the prescription filled anyway--let alonelet this citizen-friendly government drive them to abstaining from any drug because of cost rather than need.
4. Drop your DEA registration and refer the patient to their physician for the necessary prescription. The added inconvenience might help the population better understand how misguided our government is.

If the ADA will not do anything to protect us from our government, then we must take our own actions to make the public aware. They think we are all just rich dentists and can absorb another cost. Well, your editor is not rich, and now doing pro bono work in my city's neediest, poorest neighborhoods has just gotten more costly. If we do not stop this money-hungry government from further incursions on its citizens, who will? Access to medical/dental treatment and reasonable fees is a right, not a luxury. Establishing excessive fees, government is, in essence, denying access by the public to being treated for their ailments, including dentistry. This is an artificial barrier that does not need to be placed between the needy patient and the provider.