Saving Dental Services from State Budget Cuts
As part of the Council of Community Clinic’s mission to provide a safety net of essential health services to people in San Diego, many of the Council’s member health centers offer a full range of dental services to Medi-Cal patients. This program, called Denti-Cal, currently provides the basis for 100,000 dental health visits per year to our health centers. Many more of our centers have plans to provide these key dental services for children and adults.
The Governor’s budget, on the other hand, proposes a total cut of dental services for adults. This would cause a dramatic loss of income for community clinics and health centers that potentially would damage the community clinic network’s ability to achieve its safety net mission.
Left untreated it can lead to serious health consequences-tooth loss, infection, damage to bone or nerve. Infection from an abscessed tooth can spread to other parts of the body and, ultimately, may even lead to death. Clearly, oral health is just as important as non-oral health. When preventative dental care and basic care goes away, people wait longer to access medical care, and when they do, too often their only option is one of our region’s already over-stressed emergency rooms. This situation increases wait times, particularly for people with non-emergency conditions.
A coalition of dental health advocates, including the California Dental Society had this to say about the proposed cuts:
Complete elimination of adult Denti-Cal would have severe consequences for low-income adults, but would also have the following unintended effects
1) People who lack access to affordable dental treatment often live in pain, limiting their ability to find and retain work and diminishing their productivity.
2) When parents do not make at least one dental visit annually, their children are 13 times less likely to visit a dentist that same year. Thus, the proposed cuts to the adult dental program will adversely affect children.
3) Eliminating the adult program, along with reducing reimbursement for children’s dental services, would very likely lead to significant numbers of dentists limiting their Denti-Cal practices or leaving the program altogether, further compromising access for children. Denti-Cal rates are currently only 30 percent of the usual and customary rates paid to dentists. Further rate reductions will drive providers out of the program.
4) Poor oral health resulting from the elimination of adult dental services in California will likely exacerbate non-dental medical costs ultimately borne by both the state and local counties. Further, transferring dental treatment to the emergency room, as will surely occur, results in approximately 10 times greater costs than the cost of providing preventive care at the dental office.
Click here to find your state legislators and send them a message “Preserve the health care of our community. Don’t cut our dental and mental health services.”
June 24, 2008 - Fox 6 News - State Cuts and Clinic Health Options