Dental dilemma.

• Author: Toth, Zita
• Position: TRENDS

Medicaid covers dental care for all low-income children and millions of adults in all but four states, but having the coverage doesn't necessarily result in receiving the care. Finding a dentist who participates in Medicaid can be difficult as only about a third of dentists do. The Medicaid reimbursement rates for dental care are relatively low. In addition, like with other services, 47 million Americans live in an area that lacks enough dentists to care for the population.

Waiting too long to see a dentist can result in a costly emergency room visit and a more serious disease. In fact, toothaches are one of the top reasons for emergency room visits, which doubled nationwide, from 1.1 million to 2.1 million, between

2000 and 2010, according to the American Dental Association.

Some believe a potential solution to the lack of available dental health care is to train and license midlevel "dental therapists" to perform some preventive and routine care that currently is reserved for only dentists. This would free up the dentists' time for more complex cases. Therapists work in conjunction with a dentist but because they require less education, they are cheaper to train and employ.

Dental therapists are fairly...