Last month, HHS awarded $156 million to 420 health clinics around the U.S. to help address the overwhelmingly high demand for affordable dental coverage, according to Kaiser Health News.
Roughly 108 million Americans lack dental insurance, HHS found, and even those with dental coverage may find it difficult to access care, according to the report. For many people, primary care medical centers represent the main access point for dental care.
Here are four things to know about the increasing utilization of health centers for dental care in the U.S., according to Kaiser Health News.
1. The cost of care has transformed dental care into a luxury item for many low- and middle-income families. According to the American Dental Association, 20 percent of low-income adults report their mouth and teeth are in poor condition.
2. Although dental benefits are guaranteed for eligible children under Medicaid and CHIP, dental coverage for adult Medicaid beneficiaries is not mandatory and varies across states. Even in states that cover Medicaid patients' dental care, it can be very difficult to access a provider because of low reimbursement rates.
3. While the number of children receiving dental care has been increasing, the rate of adults who visit a dentist is declining. According to data from the ADA, visits to private dental offices decreased by 9 percent between 2006 and 2012. Instead, adults have increasingly been seeking dental care at health centers and emergency departments, where such appointments have increased by 74 percent and 20 percent, respectively, according to the report.
4. "Dental insurance is not really health insurance. Health insurance is to help you smooth out the risk, it protects people from catastrophic costs," said Marko Vujicic, chief economist of the Health Policy Institute in the ADA, referring to the maximum out-of-pocket cost health insurance plans offer. "Dental insurance is structured completely the opposite. There is a cap on how much the plan will pay and beyond that, it's fully out of pocket."