1. The Alliance of TMD Organizations supports ethical and professional patient centered care.

2. Treatment should be based upon individual patient needs.

3. TMD and associated facial pain disorders/diseases may encompass physical, functional, cognitive, and psycho-social factors all of which may contribute to patient’s symptoms and complaints. Any or all aspects may be taken into consideration when developing diagnoses and treatments accepting that TMD and associated co-morbidities including other pain disorders may be multi-factorial in nature.

4. Diagnoses and treatments should be based upon scientific information in conjunction with the skill, knowledge, and judgment of the providing clinician within the scope of their care.

5. Patient care should progress from initially minimally invasive treatment with gradations of increased intervention weighing risk versus benefit within reasonable standards of care.

6. The diagnosis and treatment of TMD should be considered an emerging science accepting that approaches for diagnoses and treatments may change based upon scientific evidence, clinical evidence. Reasonable standards of care should always be considered in the differential diagnosis of all head, neck and facial pain.

7. Efforts should be made to allow for continuity of care between multi-disciplinary health care providers.

8. Although not gender specific, TMD symptoms and associated pain disorders are gender biased and found to be reported predominately in females.

9. Since TMD and associated pain disorders are by nature gender biased affecting a significant portion of the female population, they should also be considered a women’s health issue.

10. Third party payers should not discriminate based upon gender, body part, location of symptoms, specific dysfunction, or professional degree of the licensed health care provider.

These 10 basic principles were developed by the majority of the representatives of TMD Alliance members.