A new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation has found that only 17 percent of uninsured U.S. adults saw a dentist in the past year. Those adults with Medicaid or CHIP coverage were not much better, at only 20 percent. Dental care is becoming something that only the upper and upper middle income classes can afford. Even with insurance, anything beyond basic care and X-rays usually comes with out-of-pocket costs that lower income patients cannot afford. Dental surgery, crowns or implants can cost thousands of dollars, even with insurance coverage.
At least 20 percent of Americans describe their teeth as in “poor condition,” alarming officials of the U.S. Health and Humans Services. This is because of lack of funding for care, lack of access to dentists and lack of education about proper dental care.
Dental benefits are guaranteed for lower income children through Medicaid and CHIP, but Medicaid coverage for adults is not required and varies from state to state. Even with Medicaid coverage it can be difficult to obtain dental care. Low reimbursement from the government program means that many dentists will not accept patients with Medicaid, leaving them to get their coverage through free clinics that offer only basic services.
Maria Chandler, chief medical officer at the Long Beach Children’s Clinic, says, “It’s getting harder to find dental care. Patients line out every day to get care, it’s so highly overwhelmed that most of our adults cannot get care. It’s hard to provide dental care without some sort of grant support because the revenue from the care will not cover the cost. And I think this grant and the services that we are going to provide is still only a fraction of what is needed.”
Last month, the Department of Health and Human Resources awarded a $156 million dollar grant to split among 420 facilities that provide dental care to the uninsured and the indigent, but it is far less than what is actually needed to meet the demand. There is an overwhelming problem with periodontal disease and dental decay that often cannot be addressed without advanced treatment that is unavailable at these clinics.
Dental insurance is much different from health insurance, which helps protect people from catastrophic costs. Instead, dental insurance pays for the first expenses, but once it reaches a cap on payments the costs must be paid fully out of pocket.