Federal government will face pressure to add dental to Medicare, amid 'overwhelming' wait times
July 21 2025
ABC News.
An elderly man sat in a chair in a garden
Don Batty says he is very embarrassed by his teeth. He cannot afford to see a private dentist.
In short:
Data shows that patients are waiting months, if not years, for dental care in every Australian state and territory.
Two million Australians are skipping or delaying dental care due to the cost.
What's next?
The Greens now hold the sole balance of power in the Senate and say they will use it to pressure the federal government to add dental to Medicare.
Queensland pensioner Don Batty has always looked after his teeth, but age has taken its toll.
These days, the former NSW Police officer finds it hard to look in the mirror.
"I'm 80 years old now and my teeth have started to disintegrate," he told the ABC.
"I'm very embarrassed by my teeth and I try not to smile because I frighten people."
The Toowoomba resident is missing multiple molars, which makes it hard to chew food.
His dental issues affect his diet, speech and confidence.
An elderly man inspects his teeth in a mirror
The Queensland pensioner has been waiting for public dental care for nearly two years.
He has been living like this for nearly two years because he cannot afford to visit a private dentist.
"It would be totally impossible.
"There is no way I can save enough money to spend the thousands that are required to go to a private dentist."
Mr Batty is among 140,000 Queenslanders waiting for non-urgent public dental care.
More than 10,000 patients have been added to the queue in the past year.
"I've been waiting now for about 21 months," Mr Batty said.
"We've got a very, very good dental service, but it's overwhelmed. There's no way they can deal with the number of people in this city and surrounding towns with the resources they've got."
A national issue
Data obtained by the ABC shows patients in every state and territory can expect to wait months, if not years, for non-urgent public dental care.
Around one-third of Australians are eligible for the free or low-cost public dental services, which are delivered by state and territory governments with some funding from the Commonwealth.
There are variations in how states and territories record and report their data, but the figures are similar.
Queensland Health says it is "desirable" to provide a patient with general dental care within two years.
In New South Wales, the "maximum recommended waiting time" for patients seeking non-urgent routine care is around 18 months.
The Victorian Health Department said the average wait for the state's non-urgent public dental services was 12.4 months.
The most recent data available shows the longest wait times were in Tasmania and the Northern Territory.
two dental practitioners looking at an xray of a patient's teeth
Tasmania and the Northern Territory have the longest waiting times for dental care.
In Tasmania, 50 per cent of patients removed from the waitlist in the past 12 months had been there for more than 2.5 years.
In the NT, the median wait time for a first appointment from 2023 to 2024 was also around 2.5 years, according to data compiled by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).
The AIHW also found about 10 per cent of patients in Tasmania and the NT waited nearly five years for their first appointment.
The shortest waiting times were in Western Australia, where last year patients received non-urgent care after an average of 5.4 months.
In South Australia, the average wait was seven months.
No average or median wait list data was available for the ACT.
Each state and territory government told the ABC that patients in priority groups or those requiring urgent care did not have to wait for treatment.
Australian Dental Association president Chris Sanzaro said the issue was adding pressure to other parts of the health system.
"Around Australia there's nearly 90,000 potentially preventable hospitalisations each year due to dental disease.
"There's a lot of links between poor dental health and overall health. The one link we know is very strong is between diabetes and poor dental health."
Peter Breadon from the Grattan Institute says the system is overwhelmed.
Grattan Institute health program director Peter Breadon said the public dental system was underfunded and "overwhelmed".
"Of all the funding that goes into dental care in Australia, about 60 per cent comes out of the pockets of patients, in the form of fees," he said.
"To put that in perspective … it's nine times the share that comes from patients when you see a GP."
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