Cat among the red amber and green pigeons

Nice to see risk assessment for all dental patients challenged academically:

http://www.nature.com/bdj/journal/v210/n8/abs/sj.bdj.2011.284.html

The main point in the paper seems to be that many patients visit the dentist regularly with little treatment required and therefore it may be a poor use of resources to keep risk assessing people who have been repeatedly OK. I tend to agree. However, this may throw a cat among the pigeons in what is being planned for the new dental contract. Effectively, what the authors propose is screening out those people who usually visit with no problems. Where I get into an intellectual tangle with the authors is on this point: is not the screening out of those who visit regularly with few problems itself an assessment of low risk? My conclusion therefore is what they are proposing is a more efficient allocation of low risk status. I cannot argue with the pursuit of that as a goal.