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From left: Myron Pudwill, D.D.S., professor, adult restorative dentistry, UNMC College of Dentistry, Kathleen Roth, D.D.S., president of the American Dental Association, and John Reinhardt, D.D.S., dean, UNMC College of Dentistry, at the college’s annual Professionals’ Day on Apil 6. |
More than 250 dental students, their families, faculty and staff were on hand for the event and Wentz Memorial Lecture, which Dr. Roth presented, at the college in Lincoln.
“Today’s dental students represent the future of the profession I love,” Dr. Roth said. “I want to increase students’ awareness of the challenges they will face and the opportunities they will have to use their skills to make a positive difference in people’s lives.”
Dr. Roth also emphasized the importance of focusing not only on the patients the students will see in the clinic, but also on those who for one reason or another cannot find their way to receiving dental care.
“Every dentist I know provides some free or discounted care to people who need it and otherwise wouldn’t get it,” she said. “We do this both individually and collaboratively. One study published in the mid-nineties estimated that dentists delivered $1.6 billion in free or discounted care in a single year. But the sad fact is that all of our volunteer and charitable efforts aren’t enough — and they never will be — because charity isn’t a health care system.”
Ninety percent of the nation’s dentists are in private practice, but only a small fraction participate in Medicaid, Dr. Roth said, making access for those patients receiving Medicaid nearly impossible.
She suggested the U.S. Congress could do more to make it easier for private practice dentists to participate in Medicaid by passing the Children’s Dental Healthcare Improvement Act of 2007 introduced in March by U.S. Sens. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.).
The bill would authorize $40 million to help community health centers and health departments hire dental health professionals to serve poor children. It would provide grants and incentives to allow states to improve their Medicaid payment rates to dentists.
It is critical that we build the preventive infrastructure that, ultimately, is the only way that we will end what former Surgeon General David Satcher famously called the “silent epidemic,” Dr. Roth said.