The article from China News Service (CNS) discusses the rampant chaos in the dental implant market and calls for stricter regulation. On September 20th, the 36th National Tooth Care Day, CNS reporters uncovered that numerous oral healthcare institutions are luring patients with low-price advertisements, only to inflate treatment costs through additional services and bundled consumption, deceiving consumers. Social media platforms have also played a role in this process.
The article mentions several issues, including:
- Institutions initially quote low prices but then significantly increase costs during treatment.
- Some clinics unnecessarily extract healthy teeth for profit, disregarding patient health.
- False advertising, such as offering free check-ups and exaggerated claims, is rampant.
- Despite the reduction in dental implant costs due to centralized procurement, some institutions are exploiting loopholes.
- From 2020 to the first half of 2024, over 1,500 administrative penalty documents related to oral institutions were published, mostly involving exaggerated or false advertising and price fraud.
- In the first half of this year alone, more than 200 oral healthcare institutions faced administrative penalties.
- Platforms like Xiaohongshu and Weibo are filled with misleading advertisements from oral healthcare institutions, acting as accomplices in deceiving consumers.
The article suggests that with the advancement of AI technology, platforms could easily manage and filter out false information if they wanted to, but the main driving force is still profit. It also emphasizes that regulators should not merely focus on punishing exposed issues but should also strengthen source control by regulating prices, setting industry standards, and managing advertising to make dental implant prices more transparent. It is crucial for healthcare institutions to uphold medical ethics and ensure treatment effectiveness without turning policy benefits into a tool for profit. Regulators must establish long-term governance mechanisms and implement comprehensive management of dental implant charges to achieve routine oversight of oral healthcare services and implant prices.
The article ends by stating that effective regulation should not be a superficial effort but a significant endeavor to establish a long-term governance mechanism for dental implant charges and oral healthcare services.
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