Poor oral health can have dire consequences. Currently Medicaid benefits that cover dental care are only extended to children while more than 30 million Americans live in areas with too few dentists to meet their needs, and even still millions of children and retirees lack access to good oral health care because they can’t afford it, a new government report finds. Reimbursement rates for dental health care providers should also be increased, and administrative practices streamlined according to the release this week.
The study states:
“To improve provider participation in public programs, states should increase Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program reimbursement rates. With proper training, non-dental health care professionals can acquire the skills to perform oral disease screenings and provide other preventive services. Dental schools should expand opportunities for dental students to care for patients with complex oral health care needs in community-based settings in order to improve the students’ comfort levels in caring for vulnerable and underserved populations. “
Specifically, it is reported that 33.3 million people reside in areas where there aren’t enough dental health professionals to meet the population’s needs. In 2008, 4.6 million children went without needed dental care because their families lacked the financial means to pay for it and in 2006, almost two-thirds (62%) of U.S. retirees did not have dental health care coverage.
Currently Medicare does not cover dental health.
Deteriorating dental health can have broader consequences for overall well-being. For example, poor oral health has been linked to heightened odds for respiratory illness, heart disease and diabetes. Rates of inappropriate use of emergency services also rise for those with poorer dental health.
Frederick Rivara also involved in the study comments:
“The consequences of insufficient access to oral health care and resultant poor oral health, at both the individual and population levels, are far reaching. As the nation struggles to address the larger systemic issues of access to health care, we need to ensure that oral health is recognized as a basic component of overall health.”
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is attempting to help the cause. The CDC’s current (FY 2010) budget for oral health activities is approximately $14.4 million. Over the past decade, a gradual but steady rise in the level of funding has allowed CDC to implement and expand several initiatives.
For example, the CDC initiated a cooperative agreement program, called the State-based Oral Disease Prevention Program, in FY 2001. This program provides financial support and technical assistance to state oral health programs to help them strengthen their capacity to provide oral health promotion and disease prevention programs. The initial cycle of the cooperative agreement program provided support to 12 states and the Republic of Palau; the second cycle, which began in 2008, initially provided funding to 16 states. In 2010, a modest increase in CDC’s budget allowed the agency to fund three additional states.
The agency also now plays a greater role in leading surveillance aspects of national surveys and promoting analyses of data from those surveys, including the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). In 2002, a tool called My Water’s Fluoride was added to the Web site.
Sources: The National Academy of Sciences and
Written by Sy Kraft