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Health and Wellness

The Massachusetts Dental Society (MDS) Dentist Health and Wellness Committee (DHWC) serves to provide resources and services to MDS members to improve their overall health and well-being. We invite MDS members to join the MDS Health and Wellness Facebook group dedicated to the discussion of wellness. If we are in a good place physically, mentally, and emotionally, then we are better equipped to help those around us. 

All One Health—Member Assistance Program

MDS MEMBERS CAN ACCESS THIS BENEFIT ON JULY 1, 2025

The MDS is partnering with All One Health to offer a complimentary Member Assistance Program connecting you with resources and services to support wellness.


All services are complimentary, confidential, and available to you and your household members. This includes access to short-term counseling and a wide range of services, including:
  • Mental health sessions—Manage stress, anxiety, and depression, resolve conflict, improve relationships, and address personal issues. Choose from in-person sessions, video counseling, or telephonic counseling.
  • Life coaching—Reach personal and professional goals, manage life transitions, overcome obstacles, strengthen relationships, and achieve greater balance.
  • Financial consultation—Build financial wellness related to budgeting, buying a home, paying off debt, resolving general tax questions, preventing identity theft, and saving for retirement or tuition.
  • Legal referrals—Receive referrals for personal legal matters, including estate planning, wills, real estate, bankruptcy, divorce, custody, and more.
  • Work-life resources and referrals—Obtain information and referrals when seeking childcare, adoption, special needs support, eldercare, housing, transportation, education, and pet care.
  • Personal assistant—Save time with referrals for travel and entertainment, seeking professional services, cleaning services, home food delivery, and managing everyday tasks.
  • Medical advocacy—Get help navigating insurance, obtaining doctor referrals, securing medical equipment, and planning for transitional care and discharge
  • Member portal—Access your benefits 24/7/365 through the member portal with online requests and chat options. Explore thousands of self-help tools and resources, including articles, assessments, podcasts, and resource locators.

The Member Portal Gives You Access to 
  • Request a Mental Health Session—Submit an online form or request through live chat. Choose from in-person or virtual counseling options to meet your needs.
  • Request Referrals & Resources—Submit a request for family care and lifestyle support, including childcare and eldercare referrals, legal referrals, financial consultation, personal assistant referrals, and medical advocacy consultation.
  • Explore Thousands of Self-Care Articles & Resources—Choose from health and lifestyle assessments, interactive checklists, soft skills courses, podcasts, resource locators, exclusive discounts, and expansive articles on whole health and well-being.
  • Visit Your Online Financial Center—The financial center features worksheets, calculators, and a wide range of financial resources and tools to help reach personal goals and build financial wellness.


How to Connect

The supportive resources and services are all easily accessible through the member portal. Or, if you prefer to connect by phone, you can always call to access services, without needing to create an account or log in to the member portal. Contact All One Health by phone at 800.788.8630.


How To Access the Member Portal
  1. Visit encompass.us.com and click on “Sign Up” below the login form
  2. To create an account and sign in, enter your email address and company code: MDSMAP
  3. For login assistance, select “Email Support.”


Privacy and Questions

No matter what the concern, connecting with All One Health is a great starting point to find appropriate resources, referrals, information, and support. Simply pick up the phone and call 800.788.8630, or log in to access services.

Any All One Health benefit that you use is confidential, which means no one, not even the MDS, will know that you are using the services. The information will not be shared with anyone.

For questions regarding the Member Assistance Program, email Janine Avery, MDS member engagement manager.



Confidential Services for Alcohol and Substance Use

Dentist Health and Wellness Programs

MDS Cares Community Service Program

Join your colleagues and give just a few hours of your time to make a big difference to your community. Volunteering is a wonderful way to give back and have a tangible impact on someone in need. Consider becoming a part of the MDS Cares Program and make a difference today!

 

Volunteer Opportunities

Resources

Mental Health, Stress, and Anxiety:

Crisis Helplines & Suicide Prevention: 

The Wellness Benefits of Meditation and Yoga

It is easy for us to feel overwhelmed with what we can’t control. When that happens, we should shift our energy and tap into what we can control. One of our greatest anchors at times of stress exists in all of us, and that anchor is our breath. By slowly breathing in and out, and making our exhales longer than our inhales, we can calm our nervous system and relax the body. 

Benefits:

  • Increase strength
  • Purify self
  • Improve self awareness
  • Overcome challenges

Yoga helps you overcome challenges by:

  • Acknowledging the challenge
  • Accepting the challenge
  • Having compassion for the challenge
  • Moving through the challenge


Five-Minute Meditation:

Join Dr. Christina DiBona Pastan for a short breathing meditation exercise that can help bring ease and tranquility to your day.

Ergonomics

The members of the dental team are among several health care professionals at high risk for developing musculoskeletal disorders. This is due to the unique and, at times, awkward positioning of their bodies during work-related tasks. The key to preventing musculoskeletal disorders is to employ proper ergonomics—the science of tailoring the work environment to the worker.

Common musculoskeletal injuries:
  • Mid- and low-back pain
  • Premature disc degeneration
  • Increased chance of radicular symptoms in the legs
  • Chronic neck and upper back musculoskeletal problems
  • Carpal tunnel and/or fingers

Decreasing musculoskeletal injuries:
  • Use an ergonomically correct stool
  • Sit with feet flat on the floor and keep the hips slightly higher than the knees
  • Maintain mid-line head/neck posture
  • Stretching the hands, fingers and wrists between dental instrument use and between patients
  • Learn how to engage and strengthen the transverse abdominal muscles

Stress Management

It's important to take the necessary steps to relieve stress as much as you can through physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral actions.

Top stressors:
  • Patients defaulting/no-showing
  • Bureaucratic workload
  • Time pressures
  • Difficult patients
Consequences of accumulation of unhealthy stress:
  • Neglect of basic living activities
  • Dysfunctional habits
  • Quick fixes for self-care habits
  • Derive less rewards from pleasures and thus neglect them
  • Lack of empathy and interest in others
Four basic steps to reduce stress:
  1. Monitor yourself
  2. Set a target daily arousal level
  3. Plan your interventions wisely
  4. Implement and assess the impact
Strategies for offsetting your stress:

 PHYSICAL

  • Autonomic relaxation (e.g., diaphragmatic breathing)
  • Muscle relaxation (e.g., progressive muscle relaxation)
  • Yoga
  • Appropriate exercise
  • Enough sleep
  • Healthy eating
  • Reducing substances that tax your nervous system

COGNITIVE
  • Meditation (e.g., mindfulness meditation)
  • Distraction

EMOTIONAL
  • Social comfort
  • Experiences of trust (e.g., confiding, prayer)
  • Distraction

BEHAVIORAL
  • Stress breaks/days off/time-outs
  • Fun/pleasurable activities