Network fills in kids' dental care gaps

June 01, 2009 6:00 AM

SAN ANDREAS - Just as dental care for the poor is disappearing elsewhere in California, leaders of social service agencies in Calaveras County this month are launching a new dental care network that will give children the oral surgery and other treatment they need.

The Calaveras Dental Network grew out of related efforts to keep children in school and data showing that dental problems are the top reason children miss school, said Nancy Tiffany, program director of Head Start preschools for The Resource Connection, an agency that serves Calaveras County families.

"A child who has an abscess or a lot of decay in their mouth is a child who is going to be sick more often and miss more school," Tiffany said.

Dental hygienists who visit Calaveras County schools have made headway in preventing cavities in students but still find that almost a quarter of the children have untreated cavities and more than one in five have visible tooth decay.

Although California still offers dental care for uninsured children from low-income families (the state's dental care program for poor adults will be discontinued July 1), no dentist in Calaveras County currently accepts Denti-Cal.

Dentists say that's because Denti-Cal payments are low, and the paperwork required to receive reimbursement is onerous.

"If somebody is in a lot of need, I would rather do it for free than actually go through the paperwork to get money back," said Dr. Joana Motiu, a dentist who practices in San Andreas and Valley Springs and who has cooperated with local agencies to treat low-income children. She sometimes donates her services.

Motiu and representatives from the Calaveras County Office of Education, First 5 Calaveras and The Resource Connection came up with the idea of the Calaveras Dental Network to raise funds to pay for dental care for children and to take care of paperwork that is an obstacle for dentists willing to treat children living in poverty.

The Resource Connection will get the names of children in need from dental hygienists working in the schools and will deal with the paperwork to figure out which children have insurance of some kind and to get payment where possible.

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Filling the gaps in dental care

May 25, 2009

The waiting room of a dental clinic for the uninsured is filled with stories of just how bad a toothache can get.

Juleah Best buys temporary fillings at a drugstore to relieve a decaying tooth.

The word "temporary" aptly describes them.

"Every time I inhale, it hurts my top and bottom jaw, clear up to my temple," said Best, a 29-year-old single mother who hasn't been to the dentist in more than a decade.

Marchia Dolbow, 51, won't drink anything cold for fear of aggravating exposed nerves in her mouth. The physical pain isn't the worst thing, though; it's the ache of how she looks with only seven teeth in her mouth.

"I have been turned down for jobs I knew I qualified for, but because of my appearance, they say, 'I'm sorry, we're not hiring.' "

The Beach women were among 26 people who showed up in mid-May for the Beach Health Clinic's first free dental clinic.

The dental services were a collaborative effort that involved volunteer dentists, the Navy, Old Dominion University, funding from foundations and companies, and the Beach Health Clinic, which serves the uninsured of Virginia Beach.

Dental care is a gaping hole for the uninsured in Hampton Roads, according to a community health survey commissioned by Sentara Healthcare five years ago. Community health professionals tagged dental care as one of the top medical services the uninsured had trouble finding, even higher than prescriptions and mental health care.

They often turn to emergency rooms instead. During a one-year period starting in 2003, there were 1,577 cases of uninsured people showing up in Sentara hospital emergency rooms with problems that would have been better treated in a dental office.

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Today's Healthy Child: Orthodontics For Kids

Posted By: Carol Phillips 12 days ago

Every child has some sort of orthodontic need during their childhood years. It's important that those needs are addressed at an early age.

Orthodontist Dr. Kirt Simmons says most orthodontists suggest scheduling your child's first appointment around the age of 7.

"That's an age at which typically the first permanent molars in the back are already in and they're starting to what we call switch from baby to grown up teeth."

He says the first appointment will be mostly a consultation.

"Typically, the orthodontist will examine your child. They'll tell you what particular problems they see, what the consequences of those problems may or may not be, and they'll recommend some treatment, times and options."

And he says kids shouldn't be afraid. "Typically, we would just use a dental mirror; we don't use anything sharp or pokey, there's no shots or anything like that, actually no bad taste, other than sometimes the gloves don't taste particularly wonderful. And that's typically all and it's usually a relatively a short appointment."

Simmons says orthodontic problems can sometimes be genetic or often a result from sucking their fingers or thumb.

"That causes a problem where they can't bite right in the middle and causes them to have to slide their jaw one direction or the other. That should be treated fairly early because if a child always postures off to the same side their jaw can actually grow kind of crooked," he explains. "And an easy way to kind of look for that is the line between the middle of the top and bottom teeth should line up when your child bites together. If that's off, then that may indicate that that's a problem."

Dr. Bryan Burke says the earlier age a problem is found, the easier, faster and less expensive it can be to treat. He encourages parents to get their child in to see their dentist by at least age 2, and to ask their child's dentist when he thinks it's time for a visit to the orthodontist.

Source: Today's Healthy Child: Orthodontics For Kids

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