Czech dentists threaten to become independent from insurance companies

Czech Dentists are threatening to leave health insurance companies and plan to ask patients to pay for every service directly by the middle of next year. The president of the Czech Dentists' Association, which held a general meeting on Saturday, said the dentists' contracts with insurers expire in mid-2006. If the government fails to introduce changes to its health insurance policy that would set more favourable conditions, the country's dentists, who are every year decreasing in number, will stop co-operating and will take direct payments from patients instead.