By Dr. John Luther, DentaQuest Chief
Dental Officer
A
record number of people are heading to hospital emergency rooms (ERs) when they
have an urgent dental need, straining the nation’s health care system and
increasing health care costs.
While
ERs are equipped to provide pain relief and treat dental infection, few
hospitals have dentists available to provide definitive dental care. Most of
the time, ER staff are only able to provide a temporary fix, providing patients
with prescriptions for pain or antibiotics for infection without diagnosing or
resolving the underlying dental issue. This leaves the individual vulnerable to
returning to the ER with the same problem or perhaps a more severe problem,
which ultimately becomes more costly and painful to treat.
This month, the American Dental Association Health Policy
Resources Center (HPRC) released findings
which conclude that the number of dental-related ER visits in the United States
jumped from 1.1 million in 2000 to 2.1 million in 2010.
According
to HPRC’s research, dental ER visits cost the health care system up to $2
billion annually. HPRC found that the increase in cost is primarily driven by
young adults, aged 21 to 34 years old, with inadequate dental coverage. During
the last decade, decreases in private dental insurance combined with major
reductions in adult dental Medicaid coverage have caused young adult
dental-related ER visits to skyrocket from 1.5 percent to 3 percent--higher
than any other age group.
The
Affordable Care Act (ACA), as the HPRC points out, lacks the power to address
this rising trend because it does not mandate dental benefits for adults. And,
adult dental benefits are not be included in the essential benefit packages
that insurance plans will sell through states’ exchanges under the law.
HPRC
is calling on policy makers to look at other ways to improve access to dental
care for adults, including innovative programs aimed at diverting dental
patients from the ERs to community health centers (CHCs) or private dental
practices, where they can receive preventive, continuous dental care.
Driven
by our mission to improve the oral health of all, DentaQuest supports this approach. We
believe that access to prevention-focused dental care is a cost-effective,
valuable way to keep health care costs down. Our programs, such as the Strengthening
the Oral Health Safety Net Initiative, the National
Interprofessional Initiative on Oral Health, and Oral Health
2014, invest in national and community-based actions that engage
communities across the country to create conditions for optimal oral health
through prevention support and access to oral health care.
In
the next decade, I am hopeful that our collaboration with policy makers and
other key stakeholders will result in the reversal of this climbing negative
trend.