Healthy Kids

Kids’ Dental Costs Rising: Affordable Dental Care Needed   by Susan Braden

The tough economic times we are experiencing affect every segment of our society, including our children. While everyone agrees that kids’ health and well-being should be one of our highest priorities, they continue to suffer. One area in which this trend is particularly disturbing involves their oral health. The rising costs that burden their parents are leading to alarming consequences in one of the most vulnerable segments of our population.

The Frightening Facts

A staggering number of children in the United States under age eighteen go without visiting a dentist each year. The most recent report by the Pew Center on the States estimated the figure at one in five, a full twenty percent of all children. When dental problems go untreated, they inevitably worsen and become more complicated, often leading to systemic health problems. As this trend of avoiding dental visits continues to increase, projected dental costs for children in this country are also sure to rise. Pew estimates that they will rise by 58 percent by 2018.

Children Bear the Brunt

When kids are not taken to the dentist on a regular basis, oral care professionals are unable to monitor their teeth over time. Cavities that started out small and could have been treated easily and painlessly amplify over time into painful and complicated dental problems that frequently require costly ambulatory surgery for even very small children. On the other hand, kids who begin to go to the dentist as early as age one and continue to get routine treatment can greatly benefit. A 2004 study from the American Academy of Pediatrics looked at a sample of children in North Carolina and found that the younger the child was when he or she had his/her first dental visit, the lower were his/her dental costs throughout his/her pre-school years. This is probably because regular dental visits enable at risk children to be identified and preventive measures taken.

The Economy Takes its Toll

It is important to understand that most parents do not deliberately deprive their children of dental care. Many simply cannot afford it. Sadly, this seems to be directly correlated to an increase in the incidence of tooth decay in young people. Over the last ten years, it has increased by fifteen percent among children under five, and by 30 percent for those below the poverty line. Since cavities in primary teeth often lead to decay in permanent teeth later, this is a disquieting trend. Even now, nearly 80 percent of the dental disease in kids in this country can be found in 20 to 25 percent of the children. Not surprisingly, those children come from low income families who cannot afford or, for a number of other complex reasons, do not access dental insurance resources.

Is Public Insurance the Solution?

It might be surprising to learn that, according to the findings of a California study, children covered by public insurance, usually thought of as affordable dental care, are much less likely to see the dentist than are those with private coverage. Sadly, many oral care professionals, including pediatric dentists, do not accept Medicaid, thereby denying some of the most vulnerable patients access to regular dental care. Their refusal to accept publicly insured patients usually stems from an inability to sustain their practices if they focus on Medicaid patients, since Medicaid only pays a small fraction of the real cost for most procedures. As President Obama’s healthcare plan becomes a reality over the next few years, more children will be able to take advantage of affordable dental care services under Medicaid. However, the down side to this good news is that financially strapped states will be expected to foot much of the bill, a prospect of great concern to lawmakers across the country.

Discount Dental Plans: Hope for Our Children

Fortunately, public and private dental insurance coverage plans are not the only solutions that address our children’s pressing need for affordable dental care. In recent years, discount dental options have been enabling parents to give their children the routine oral care and specialized procedures they need at a very low cost.

With these discount dental plans, children and their parents can receive dental care immediately, with no waiting periods or deductions, at a monthly fee that most families can afford. These alternatives to traditional coverage open a new window of opportunity for care-givers eager to see that their children receive the on-going dentistry care they deserve.

About the Author

If you need a discount dental plan, Susan Braden invites you to check out the discount dental options on http://www.1dental.com.
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