Many children with Medicaid not getting required dental care, By Carla K. Johnson (AP), January 25, 2016, Northwest Indiana Times: “Three out of four children covered by Medicaid in four states, including Indiana, didn’t receive all required dental care over a recent two-year period, according to a federal report that recommends a government push to improve access to care. One in four such kids didn’t see a dentist at all, the Health and Human Services inspector general’s office said Monday. Among the reasons were that there were too few dentists accepting Medicaid patients and a lack of education about the importance of proper dental care…”
Tag: Dental care
Medicaid and Dental Care
Dental care for Medicaid patients is expanding, but a study says that won’t reduce ER visits, By Robert Gebeloff, August 6, 2015, Washington Post: “A lack of dental care for low-income Americans has long put stress on hospital emergency rooms, a new study has found, bring hundreds of thousands of patients in to ERs for minor dental problems. The study, published this week in Health Affairs, found that in 2010, somewhere around 2 percent of all ER visits was dedicated to avoidable these patients, posing questions about how best to deliver dental care to poor people. Authors of the study argue, however, that an expansion of dental care under Medicaid alone won’t fix the problem. Patients relying on the federal program would still face limited access to dentists who are willing to take them…”
Medicaid and Dental Care
Adult dental coverage expanding slowly in Medicaid, By Christine Vestal, June 10, 2015, Stateline: “At the Interfaith Dental Center in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, people with dental pain can walk into a ground floor office off Bedford Avenue and get treated without an appointment. They might have to wait in a packed waiting room. But if they’re in the door by 5 p.m., a dentist will see them. Residents in this low- to middle-income neighborhood likely don’t realize how lucky they are. The majority of Americans have to travel miles to see a dentist who takes their insurance, particularly if they’re covered by Medicaid. Many dental patients with private insurance cannot afford to pay their share of the bill. Federal law requires state Medicaid programs to include dental care for children, and the Affordable Care Act extended that requirement to private insurers. But the federal health law did little for adults: While premium tax credits were made available to help low-income people purchase health insurance, the subsidies cannot be used to purchase dental coverage except as an add-on to health coverage. No new dental benefit requirements were included for adults covered by Medicaid…”