Seniors spend thousands on dental work, suffer in pain or wind up in ERs. Will Canada's plan help?

Debilitating toothaches. Tens of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket dental bills. Trips to the emergency room — and even stays in intensive care to treat life-threatening infections.

Those are among the impacts Canadian seniors face when they lack access to dental care, say patients, advocates and health-care workers across both the dental industry and hospital sector.

Canada's new dental plan is now being hailed as a step in the right direction that could help to keep more Canadians healthier as they age and out of crowded hospitals — although experts are watching closely to see if it lives up to those early hopes.

Unveiled on Monday, the $13-billion insurance program called the Canadian Dental Care Plan will start covering most basic dentistry costs next year for uninsured Canadians with a household income under $90,000, totalling about nine million people.

Applications are opening first to eligible seniors aged 87 and older, with a staggered approach for other age groups. The process will open to all eligible applicants aged 18 and over sometime in 2025.

"I think this is going to be a game-changer," said Dr. Samir Sinha, director of geriatrics at Sinai Health in Toronto. "And I think it's long overdue."

Sinha said older patients without coverage to pay for dental care often end up avoiding treatment and can wind up in hospital emergency departments with "much more significant" health issues.

But just how much will this new program prevent serious dental issues and hospital use?

Sinha said it's not yet clear how easy it will be to enrol in the plan, how many Canadians will sign on and whether enough dental clinics will opt in to make it function smoothly.

"The devil is always in the details."

Right now in Canada, evidence suggests individuals seeking emergency care for worsening oral health issues can end up putting strain on the health-care system.

That's because there's a clear connection between gum disease and broader infections, worsened diabetes and cardiovascular issues such as stroke, said Dr. Aviv Ouanounou, a dentist and associate professor of pharmacology and preventative dentistry at the University of Toronto.

Many patients ignore tooth and gum issues until they have pain, "but they don't know that it's going to get worse and worse," he said.

Emergency department visits for dental problems in Alberta from 2011 to 2016 were more common than visits for asthma and diabetes, notes a paper published earlier this year in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, while in British Columbia, 70 per cent of such visits were deemed "non-urgent."