Dentacoin Use Case

What is Dentacoin?

Founded by Dimitar Dmitrakiev in 2017, Dentacoin stands as one of the more interesting and ambitious projects found within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Dentacoin states that its intended goals are to use blockchain to revolutionize the dental industry and the nature of the relationship between dentist and patient.

This endeavor is to meet the challenges of the dental industry with an ambitious blockchain token system that may well prove advantageous to dentists, investors, dental suppliers and even aid in better oral hygiene around the world.

Dentacoin is a utility token that is based on the protocol layer of Ethereum. Dentacoins native token DCN functions as a tradable currency, smart contract vehicle, and means of payment focused on the economy of dental practice and its associated industries. In essence, Dentacoin is Fintech logistic platform that couples its review system with ongoing market intelligence to create better value for both the token itself and the participants in the loop.

To explore the Use Case of the ambitious Dentacoin project it serves to approach the topic from both the interpersonal level between dentist and patient, and at the systematic level between industry and practice.

Dentacoin Use Case: Patient Relations

On the interpersonal level, one of the key goals of Dentacoin is to create a positive relationship between dentist and patient. Some of the more novel approaches are the use of dental NFTs, an online card game, and a Dentacoin Oral Health App, which we will discuss further later on.

But a key element to Dentacoin’s strategy is to foster a healthy partnership between patient and dentist through an honest, smart contract enacted and blockchain-based review systems. As stated by Dentacoins White Paper an open, manipulation-free review system will allow for patients to make better more informed decisions towards choosing a dentist. While on the other hand, dentists are incentivized to make adjustments towards their practice while also being more easily linked to prospective patients in the future.

The Dentacoin ‘Trusted Review’ system is incentivized to patients by rewarding the successful completion of a review or questioner with an amount of DCN. The awarded DCN can then later be used to pay for one’s dental needs. It is evident that this is a well-incentivized system for both ends of the relationship and is only Phase 1 of Dentacoins endeavors. Already we can see this feedback system being utilized in over 200 locations around the world, with roughly 2600 dentists engaging with this interesting form of incentivized blockchain feedback.

Dentacoin Use Case: Deploying Blockchain in Global Dental Care

According to Precedence Research, the global dental industry is forecasted to reach a size of 698.8 Billion USD by 2030 with the US industry alone currently sitting at 159 Billion USD. Dentacoin seeks to find its place in this booming market and even grow to be a functional challenger to aspects of the system. As stated by Dentacoins White Paper, many aspects of the dental industry are costly, time-consuming, and opposed to best practices both in and out of the dentist chair. One aspect of this is wastage.

Interoperability

Systematically speaking, certain elements of the dental industry can be wasteful in both time and money and this cost gets bared by both patient and dentist. For example, the seemingly simple issue of medical record-keeping and data sharing amongst practices is often quite complicated domestically and extremely complex internationally. With different practices using different operating systems, file storage methods, and record sharing platforms. This creates an undue level of cost and time wastage that can readily be avoided by the Dentacoin system. 

Dentacoin is a global blockchain, that exists on the Etherrum Optimism layer. This means that record storage and record sharing systems are homogeneous and interoperable regardless of the country and therefore are without the need for costly intermediation. The blockchain-based Dentacoin approach is much safer than most means of data storage and in addition, much faster. Therefore the  Dentacoin ‘network’ of practices and patients greatly benefit from this security and speed, even resulting in better oral care. 

The Dentacoin blockchain network benefits from this on mutual levels. The lower administrative costs and better dental results should encourage more members into the Dentacoin ecosystem, which in turn generates more value for DCN, further encouraging more suppliers to operate through the DCN currency and thus more value and lower costs for both patient and practitioner.

Dentacoin Use Case: Changing Dental Insurance

Dental care can be very costly out of pocket, with some people being unable or unwilling to avail of dental insurance. Phase 3 which is the current phase of Dentacoin at the time of writing this article is currently engaging with its own interesting solution to this problem. Dentacoin Assurance is a small consistent payment that gives one dental coverage, in addition, this small payment goes towards the basic living costs of the dentist. This creates an interesting interrelation between clients and dentists with benefits that outpace current dental insurance structures.

As a Use Case Dentacoins dental insurance is different than current dental insurance models and benefits greatly from its new model. Dentacoins Insurance model exists between you and your dentist in a far more direct fashion than previous models and is enacted via a two-tiered smart contract system. The smart contract system includes a standard self-executing smart contract for DCN payment between the client and the service of the dentist and an additional ‘Super Smart Contract.’ The secondary Super Smart Contract acts as a failsafe that guarantees coverage in the case of one dentist passing away or the practices of insolvency.

This new form of dental assurance is far more efficient and passes it’s saving off to its users. Therefore it is little wonder that Dentacoin is enjoying increased popularity. At the time of writing, London has already opened a 24-hour dental emergency service that accepts and uses Dentacoin’s DCN.

Dentacoin Use Case: Mutual Responsibility and Patient Participation

One aim of Dentacoin is the effort in creating ‘Mutual Responsability’ between both dentist and patient and this mutual relationship contains some advantages that are key use cases for Dentacoin. In essence, Dentacoin has created a system of interrelation that encourages and incentives mutual responsibility that should be symbiotic and mutually beneficial to all participants within the industry. This is potentially achieved via a system of mobile apps that award DCN for the completion of dental care routines and after-care practice. These apps such as DentaVox and Dentacare Oral Health App, coupled with surveys, after-care, and questioners generate value for patients in the form of tradeable DCN. Additionally these potentially ‘good-habit’ forming apps lower costs for the dentist as good dental care should result in fewer visits to one’s dentist.

Again it appears that the primary Use Case for Dentacoin lies within its ‘closed-loop market’  system and all the savings that it generates. This in addition to Dentacoin’s‘ market intelligence’ provides dynamic market data allowing for better practice, increasingly efficient supply lines, and market adaptation that makes Dentacoins model extremely attractive to prospective stakeholders. 

Benefits of Dentacoin

Already there exists a strong Use Case for the use of Blockchain in the Medical Insurance Industry. But Dentacoin is the trailblazer for this type of system in the Dental Industry. Though very much so in its early stages, Dentacoin appears to be heading in the right direction, with their cost already appearing to be down, with an uptick in people and practitioners availing of the system.

In fact, Dentacoin has already opened its first exclusive practice and now defacto headquarters: the ‘Dentaprime International Plc London’ paid for entirely through DCN. These facts should do wonders for the DCN, which should, in turn, lead to better savings and investment opportunities.

But it should be noted that certain details of the Dentacoin model have yet to be fully fleshed out and early concerns are still waiting to be addressed. For example, the nature of dental insurance coverage and dental care app engagement isn’t clear and could have some concerns for users. But even with such concerns in mind Denatcoin represents a great opportunity for investors who maintain a focus on utility tokens, and perhaps more broadly may represent a positive shift in how people engage with dental practice.