Fee-for-service dentistry or managed care: one dentist's opinion.

Contrasts are drawn between dental care based on fee-for-service and managed care financial arrangements. The advantages of fee-for-service include (for the profession) slow acceptance of managed care in dentistry compared to medicine; (for society and the patient) more community service, higher technical quality of work, and stimulation of innovations; and (for the individual dentist) the strong dentist-patient bond as well as professionalism.