Dentists claim maladministration

Dentists are going to file a complaint through the Association of Dutch Dentists (ANT) with the National ombudsman about the care authority. They find that the Netherlands Care Authority (NZa) is guilty of improper management, the NOS reports. The dentists are angry because the NZa does not want to discuss new information about the experiment with free tariffs. The experiment was prematurely halted in 2012, after the NZa observed that dentists raised their tariffs by about 10 percent. New research from the Milliman bureau, at the request of the ANT, shows that the real price hike was only three percent. Just higher than the inflation of that year. The rest of the price hike observed by the NZa was caused by changes in the system, according to Milliman. Hereby, old and new tariffs were no longer easily comparable. The ANT sent the research to the NZa in December, and requested talks. According to the Dentists' association, the NZa has barely given a reaction to this. In one of the last letters, written on the 8th of April, the NZa was given an ultimatum. This letter is in the hands of the NOS. In that letter, ANT demanded a discussion take place before 1 May between the NZa's researchers and Milliman. Because this was not agreed to, the ANT is taking the matter to the National ombudsman. In answer to questions from the NOS, NZa says that the Milliman report shows a lot of similarity with a different report, which the authority did reply to. The conclusions of that report were rejected. Further, the NZa announces that they are working on a reaction to the report from ANT.