What happens when an American needs a dentist, but doesn’t have dental insurance? Increasingly, the uninsured are waiting until they have a dental emergency, and then heading for the emergency room. This is less than ideal, for many reasons. It also points out a huge gap in insurance coverage.
The Pew Center is an organization that works to advance state policies that serve the public interest. They analyze things that are going on in individual states, in order to figure out what works, and what doesn’t work.
Recently, the Pew Center did some research that involved looking at hospital information from 24 states. They also looked at data from the Federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and studies on dental care. The results showed that there has been a big increase in emergency room visits for dental problems between 2006 and 2009.
This is happening because there are a lot of Americans who do not have any form of dental insurance coverage. A person could have employer sponsored health insurance that does not cover dental care. Or, a person could be completely uninsured.
Dental insurance helps people pay for the medical bills that come from things like dental checkups, cleanings, fillings, and potentially even root canals. The specifics depend on the type of dental insurance that a person has purchased. It would be accurate to say that dental insurance helps people afford to take care of their dental health.
Without dental insurance, preventative dental care can cost anywhere from $50 to $100 for a routine teeth cleaning. This may not sound like an impossible amount of money to come up with, but it truly can for many low-income uninsured people.
If you can’t come up with the cash, then you probably can’t afford to go see a dentist. When dental care is put off, things get worse. That small cavity can turn into a root canal quicker than you might think. People have died from complications that come from being unable to afford the dental care they need.
If you wait too long, the dental care that might have originally cost $50 will increase in price. By the time a person goes to the emergency room for dental care things may have progressed to the point where it will cost $1,000 for the treatment, the painkillers, and the antibiotics that are necessary to treat the resulting infections. In some cases, things are so bad that sedation is required.
This points out how broken the American health care system really is. Uninsured people are now using the emergency room as the first place they go for treatment of severe toothaches and chronic dental problems.
When you have these things done at a dentist’s office, the dentist will schedule you for the follow up care that you require. Emergency rooms cannot do follow up care, and are not the ideal place to go for dental care.
Image by Dottie Mae on Flickr