Dentists Don't Give Preference to Children on Medicaid

According to recent research performed by Joanna Bisgaier, MSW, from the Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, and her team; dentists avoid giving appointments to children in the combined Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program.

A team of researchers from the Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, aimed to check out the affect of insurance status on dentists' sharpness to allot an appointment for young people.

Joanna Bisgaier said that, "Illinois dentists, including those participating in Medicaid, are less likely to see a child for an urgent dental complaint if the child has public versus private dental coverage.  These results have implications for developing policies that improve access to oral health care."

The study unveiled that only 36.5 percent of Medicaid/CHIP beneficiaries were given an appointment, which differs much from 95.4 percent given for privately insured Blue Cross children.  In addition, the research showed that medicaid/CHIP beneficiaries were more than 18 times more likely to be refused an appointment in comparison with the Blue Cross children.

Source-Medindia