Joint Effort Seeks To Increase Dental Care Services To Underserved Minority Children In Maryland

Main Category: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Also Included In: Dentistry;  Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Article Date: 14 Aug 2007 - 8:00 PDT

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University of Maryland Dental School and UnitedHealthcare on Wednesday announced a joint effort to create pediatric dental programs with the goal of improving low-income children's access to dental care, the Baltimore Sun reports. Fewer than one in three children in Maryland's Medicaid program received any dental services in 2005 (Anderson, Baltimore Sun, 8/9).

Under the initiative, developed by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), UnitedHealthcare will provide about $170,000 to the dental school to help train dentists in pediatric care. The funding will be used to create a $30,000 mini-pediatric dentistry clinic and provide a case manager to help locate dentists for children, according to the Washington Post. The case managers will provide resources for transportation to dental appointments and other information about dentist appointments. The university also will create several courses to teach pediatricians how to recognize dental problems such as cavities.

Norman Tinanoff, chair of the Department of Pediatric Dentistry at the dental school, said the university hopes to have about 100 physicians participating in the new programs (Minaya, Washington Post, 8/9). The funding also will allow the university to hire another full-time pediatric dental fellow to provide care for low-income children.

In addition to the local efforts, Cummings has introduced federal legislation that would increase dental services at community health centers and train more pediatric dentists. The legislation and Maryland initiative were spurred by the death of a 12-year-old Maryland Medicaid beneficiary who died after an infection from an abscessed tooth spread to his brain. The mother of the boy had a difficult time finding a dentist who accepted Medicaid (Baltimore Sun, 8/9).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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