access to oral health

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Crain’s New York Business

One in 6 New Yorkers who needed dental care in the past year could not get it, according to a new study from SUNY Albany’s Center for Healthcare Workforce Studies.

That’s primarily because of the high cost of oral health care and widespread gaps in dental insurance coverage, according to the study, which analyzed state and national survey data from the American Association of Medical Colleges.

More than 11% of New Yorkers said they could not afford to go to the dentist. Roughly 10% lacked dental insurance, and of those who had coverage another 10% said they had trouble finding a dentist who accepted their plan.

Part of the problem is that private dental practices often do not accept Medicaid, forcing many low-income New Yorkers to seek care at overburdened safety net providers, explained Dr. Simona Surdu, co-director of SUNY Albany’s Oral Health Workforce Research Center and the lead researcher of the study…

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Dimensions of Dental Health Hygiene

Over the past decade, legislatures across the United States have grappled with scope of practice issues for health professions, including dental hygiene. Almost every state has provided new permissions or enabled conditions for broader practice in response to new technology, improved science, novel dental materials, or alternative methods for delivery of care. Downstream effects of these changes include opportunities for innovative dental hygiene practice. In addition, the fundamental shift in health care delivery away from the medical paradigm of identifying and treating existing disease toward early intervention in prevention of disease processes has had collateral effects on dentistry and dental hygiene. Dental hygienists’ competencies are grounded in patient education, motivational interviewing, and preventive and prophylactic clinical services. This expertise has positioned the profession to play a pivotal role in efforts to improve the oral health of the US population. Dental hygienists are now more commonly viewed as primary preventive oral health specialists with separate and critical responsibilities in the oral health care continuum of care.

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Pew Trusts

A strong research base finds that dental sealants are highly effective in preventing tooth decay. Sealants can reduce the risk of decay in permanent molars—the teeth most prone to cavities—by 80 percent in the first two years after application and continue to be effective after more than four years.

Yet most low-income children—who are least likely to receive routine dental care—lack sealants. According to the most recent data, 61 percent of low-income 6- to 11-year-olds (6.5 million) lacked sealants.2 A recent study found that if all 6.5 million low-income children who lacked sealants were to receive them, it would prevent 3.4 million cavities over four years.3 With this strong evidence of sealants’ effectiveness, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors, the American Association of Public Health Dentistry, and numerous other health organizations recommend sealant programs in schools, especially as an optimal location to provide low-income children with preventive care.4 Yet a 2015 Pew report found that such programs are in fewer than half of high-need schools in 39 states…

…State practice acts might include requirements that dentists examine children before a hygienist can seal their teeth in school, that dentists be present while a hygienist performs this service, or that private dentists cannot employ hygienists working in schools. They may also include rules that set very low limits on the numbers of school-based hygienists that any one dentist can supervise. In describing dental hygiene scope of practice rules, a 2016 report from the national Oral Health Workforce Research Center stated, “State-based regulatory constraints for dental hygienists may impede access to care as much as the economic and logistical barriers that are known to prevent some patients from obtaining oral health services.”5 In more recent research, the center found that a “more autonomous dental hygienist scope of practice had a positive and significant association with population oral health in both 2001 and 2014.”

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DentistryToday.com

Teledentistry is emerging as a practical solution for patients living in rural areas, according to the University of Albany. Its researchers report that teledentistry can provide critical services where gaps currently exist, especially for treatment planning and specialty consultations, as a means to improve access to oral health services in areas with inadequate availability of general and specialty dental care.

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Courier-Journal

FRANKFORT, Ky. – Kentucky still has dismal dental problems and poor overall oral health but is making some gains in attacking them, according to research presented to a legislative committee Thursday. Expanded access to dental care was one of the greatest gains from Kentucky’s decision to expand Medicaid and create a health exchange under the Affordable Care Act, according to the presentation of research funded in part by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

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New Hampshire Health and Human Services

Concord and Littleton, NH – Ammonoosuc Community Health Services (ACHS) has been recognized for achievement in a recent report from the Oral Health Workforce Research Center at the School of Public Health, University of Albany, State University of New York. ACHS was recognized for meeting a need in the community for more dental care through its new clinic and a partnership with the University of New England in Portland, Maine in the opening of a new dental school.

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