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I was reading through some recent JADAs this morning, and I came across an intereting article. The topic was medicaid and dentistry. Specifically, the article dealt with how Michigan is trying to tackle the problem with MIKids. I thought it was pretty interesting, and so far it seems to be working well for them, although, it has only been in place for about 1 year.
The reason for this thread is to provide a means for pre-dents/dental students to share information they are finding related to current issues in dentistry. I've heard that many schools pepper interviewees with "current issue" type questions to get a feel for how much the student knows about dentistry. I think having a few interesting current issues in our breast pocket in case such a question comes up could be useful.
So, aside from what I said above, I grabbed a couple of interesting points from the article:
1. Dentists are reluctant to take medicaid patients for 3 reasons:
A. Medicaid fees are FAR below usual and customary fees for practicing dentists.
B. Administration (i.e. preauthorization and verification of benefits)
C. Meicaid-enrolled patients often don't show up for appts. or have other undesirable behavior related problems while at the office.
2. Michigan has implemented a plan that takes care of issues A and B (obviously, the state can't do much to fix the behavioral problems of patients, so C is out of there hands). Basically, that make it easier from an administrative stand point to work with medicaid; and, they have increased the fees payable to dentists so that they are comparable with what private insurance companies are paying. I should also say that the MIKids program being implemented is NOT medicaid, but, instead, it is similar to CHIPS.
I thought this was an interesting example of how a state legislature and local dentists are working together to solve a problem. It allows dentists to provide care to the underserved without putting the dentists out of business.
The reason for this thread is to provide a means for pre-dents/dental students to share information they are finding related to current issues in dentistry. I've heard that many schools pepper interviewees with "current issue" type questions to get a feel for how much the student knows about dentistry. I think having a few interesting current issues in our breast pocket in case such a question comes up could be useful.
So, aside from what I said above, I grabbed a couple of interesting points from the article:
1. Dentists are reluctant to take medicaid patients for 3 reasons:
A. Medicaid fees are FAR below usual and customary fees for practicing dentists.
B. Administration (i.e. preauthorization and verification of benefits)
C. Meicaid-enrolled patients often don't show up for appts. or have other undesirable behavior related problems while at the office.
2. Michigan has implemented a plan that takes care of issues A and B (obviously, the state can't do much to fix the behavioral problems of patients, so C is out of there hands). Basically, that make it easier from an administrative stand point to work with medicaid; and, they have increased the fees payable to dentists so that they are comparable with what private insurance companies are paying. I should also say that the MIKids program being implemented is NOT medicaid, but, instead, it is similar to CHIPS.
I thought this was an interesting example of how a state legislature and local dentists are working together to solve a problem. It allows dentists to provide care to the underserved without putting the dentists out of business.
