Many dental ailments are preventable, unlike medical ailments which can be both unpredictable and catastrophic.  With dental preventive care would including having regular dental visits for checkups and cleanings.  By having regular dental visits, problems can be diagnosed early along treated without extensive testing or elaborate and expensive procedures.  Which helps keeps the costs of dental care much lower than those of medical care. In fact, total spending for dental care is decreasing. In 1970, it made up 6.3 percent of total health care expenditures. But in 1991, dental care’s share of health care spending was only 4.9 percent.