Newsletter
WASHINGTON, D.C., USA: Owing to a lack of access to dental care, millions of U.S. children each year do not see a dentist. According to a recently published report, this can be attributed to an uneven distribution of dentists and the relatively small number of dentists who participate in Medicaid or other federal-state programs, which mainly serve low-income families.
In January 2013, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that about 45 million U.S. citizens live in regions that have a scarcity of dentists. In six states, such as Kansas, Maine and North Carolina, at least 20 percent of the population has little or no access to dental care. The federal government estimates that eliminating the nation's shortages would require more than 6,000 additional dentists according to the report. In addition, the total number of dentists in the U.S. is likely to shrink in the coming years. According to a survey conducted by the American Dental Association in 2009, more than a third (37 percent) of dentists are approaching retirement.
Medicaid provides comprehensive dental benefits to about one-third of U.S. children but many dentists do not accept Medicaid patients, primarily owing to inadequate reimbursement, the investigators found. In Florida, Wisconsin, Indiana and North Dakota, low-income children were least likely to receive dental care in 2011.
Through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, millions of additional children will receive dental insurance by 2014. However, those children will enter a system that is already unable to provide dental services for all the children with current coverage, according to the report.
In order to address the lack of access to dental care and to encourage greater dentist participation in Medicaid, states should consider legislation to expand the reach of the dental team through midlevel providers in areas where dentists are scarce and increase reimbursement rates to cover the cost of providing care.
The "In Search of Dental Care" report was compiled by the Pew Charitable Trusts, a global nonprofit research and public policy organization. It was published on June 23 on the organization's website.
