Dental Divides Holds Americans Apart
The access you have to decent dental care is America very much depends on where you live. According to a Pew Charitable Trusts report has found two main reasons for why dental care in America is so inconsistent. The first is that those who aren’t on the country’s Medicaid are unable to visit the full number of dentists in their locale. The second, is that the distribution of Medicaid dentists is uneven across the whole of the US. The findings of the study revealed that 45,115,590 Americans live in areas suffering from a shortage of dentists.
Across the US 14 million children from lower-income households do not have access to appropriate dental care. Florida, with 75%, has the highest number of children who have Medicaid but did not visit the dentist in 2011. Wisconsin was second with 71.5%, Indiana with 67%, North Dakota with 66.4% and Missouri with 62.9%. The results revealed large numbers of children who enrolled in Medicaid but did not have access to proper dental treatment in 2011.
Some of the solutions suggested have been controversial, such as adding dental therapists to the workforce, whose duties are similar to those of the nurse in the doctor’s office. However, these practitioners can provide certain services many Americans are lacking. The costs of visiting one of these mid-level practitioners would be lowered to allow more patients access to dental care. Although dental therapists would not be able to provide dental cavity treatments they could provide the care which would prevent such cavities from occurring. Currently dental therapist providers are working in some locations of Alaska and Minnesota.
It is hoped that dental therapists will allow Americans access to low cost preventative dentistry and lower the number of patients admitted to the emergency room for dental problems.
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I am currently a student at the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry getting my Masters in Dental Therapy and would just like to clear up some misconceptions in your article. I agree with you one hundred percent that there is a lack of dental care in the United States and the problem needs to be solved.
I like your support towards my future occupation but would like to clear up the scope of practice for dental therapists that is allowed in Minnesota. You are correct in saying we can provide preventative treatment for cavities, but we can also provide treatment for cavities. What we can not do is diagnose cavities, although we should have good indication of being able to communicate with a dentist what we would believe to be a dentist.
Thank you for your time and hoped I cleared the scope of practice up for you a little bit. If you have any other questions or want more information just let me know and I would be more than willing to provide you with it!