Hi Amy,
My first thought after reading your post is there may be more to his dental problems than what is thought to be related to his job. Does he have periodontal disease and/or major tooth decay throughout his mouth? Both of these things will cause an elevation in BP and in inflammation throughout the body.
There is a correlation between sinus infections and tooth infections. But it is more likely that an infected tooth could cause/contribute to the sinus problem and not the other way around. Although it's not impossible to occur differently, just not usual. So I'm wondering what the health of his gums and teeth really are. If he has uncontrolled severe periodontal disease and/or rampant unrestoreable decay then extracting all of his teeth may be warranted.
Working tremendous hours in a damp underground mine can be a problem for the respiratory tract and alter the bacteria in the nasal cavity making him susceptible to sinus problems. So he may still have that problem even after his teeth are removed.
With regard to the insurance situation.... the documentation has to come from his physician, his general dentist and his oral surgeon. They have to show just cause as to why they deemed this "medically necessary". Any blood work that he has had done that indicates elevation or abnormal results with any inflammatory/infection markers like C-reactive protein; Fibrinogen, Homocysteine, White Cell Count WITH Differential, Erythrocite Sed Rate, etc. All of these would be evidence pointing to the diagnosis. All medical records pertaining to treatment of sinus infections... all prescription receipts as well as OTC meds he has used for sinus problems.
I don't think the insurance will connect his dental problems to being work related. They may link the sinus problems, but the only way to connect the teeth would be in written evidence from the dentists. Also anything associated with the surgical removal of necrotic bone due to infections and/or cysts that are removed at the time of surgery need to be noted in the surgical report as the insurance may deem the removal of all of that medically necessary.
I don't know of any particular site on the internet that could guide you any differently. The proof has to come from the medical and dental teams treating him. You can gather all of the other information about the blood work, rx receipts, written history of the numerous sinus infection, elevation in BP (would not mention stress as a cause)... etc on your own and present that with the surgical report and the dental bill to the insurance company.
I hope this information has been helpful. I also hope your husband plans on taking some time off of work to recuperate??!
Please keep in touch here...ok
Bryanna
Quote:
Originally Posted by smickey59033
Hi, My husband is having surgery in 1.5 days to have all the teeth (26) left removed and dentures. He works in an underground mine and is constantly getting sinus infections. Within 48 hours of getting a sinus infection, he ends up with 1 or more absessed teeth. The dentist is calling the removal of all of his teeth "medically necessary" and we need to do this ASAP. He also commented that my husband has very large teeth. Dentist suspects the work environment (dust, dirty water) and the changing of pressures from going from surface to underground/vice versa is contributing to his condition, on top of the sinus infections.
His blood pressure is through the roof (148/114). He's battling a sinus infection that turned into bronchitis last week on top of 2 absessed teeth, so the family doctor gave him an antibiotic and told him to resume the lisinopril (BP med) for a few weeks after dental surgery. We suspect that is due to the infections and pain. He took lisinopril 20mg 3 years ago for his hypertension that occured to the stress of my mother's passing and his BP improved enough to go off of the meds (1 yr later) once things settled down and a nutritionist emproved his diet. We are trying to get our health insurance involved to help pay for this because we only have a $1000 allowence on our dental insurance and the dentist calling it "medically necessary". The bill is going to be over $10,000. We are working to establish this as a chronic issue and show that this will greatly improve his health (reduced infections and BP, etc) in hopes that our medical insurance will help cover this huge bill.
Can you please provide your opinion and possibably direct me towards any study findings that I can additionally use to further my case in getting the health insurance to help cover this? He's had other teeth extracted (molar teeth/wisdom teeth) already and they all have extremely long roots and some are curved like fishing hooks. He had one root canal 2 months ago and it failed within a week, so we had the tooth pulled last month. He works 28 days straight before he gets 14 days off. I know his work schedule is definitely no help to these infections because he waits until he's off of work to seek help. All research I've seen says absessed teeth can cause death. He's in bad shape and scared.
Thanks, Amy
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