Dental health experts have suggested that the Federal Government has failed to prevent dentists from exploiting the Medicare dental scheme.

The federal government is revealed to have twice sought to scrap the scheme and attempted to replace it with a more cheap targeted program - but been blocked by the Senate.

One unidentified Sydney dentist was revealed yesterday to have claimed about $4 million in benefits ever since the scheme began in November, 2007.

Associate Professor Hans Zoellner, from the Association for the Promotion of Dental Health, calls for the Government to retain the scheme and administer it responsibly.

"The Government really has an important role to regulate the scheme but instead of regulating dental Mendicare, the Government has simply refused to even look at it," she added.

However, Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon reports that the program was poorly framed by the previous Government.