Preventable oral care conditions are driving more people to hospital emergency rooms and driving up healthcare costs, according to a new study from the state’s Health Policy Commission (HPC).
Children and adults covered by MassHealth are six and seven times more likely, respectively, to visit an ED for preventable oral healthcare conditions compared to the rate of their commercially insured counterparts.
And one tenth of the state’s population lives in an area that has a professional shortage of dental care.
The study results were presented at a joint meeting of HPC’s Cost Trends & Market Performance and Quality Improvement & Patient Protection committees on Wednesday.
It has long been established that oral healthcare is a key component of overall health, and that oral infections are a risk factor for heart and lung disease, osteoporosis, low-birthweight, and diabetes. HPC found that when access to dental care is limited, patients may seek care for preventable oral health conditions in EDs, and the cost to the health system for doing so is four to seven times greater than the cost of going to a dentist office.
MHA supports authorizing the establishment of an Advance Dental Hygiene Practitioners (ADHP) level of practice, and endorses a bill in the state legislature (SB2076) that would do that. SB2076 permits ADHPs, once they have successfully completed additional training, to deliver basic dental care to under-served populations. ADHPs would practice under the general supervision of dentist and take advantage of telehealth technology to share patient records with dentists and consult with them on complicated cases. The intention of the legislation is to bring basic dental care to students in schools, to the elderly in nursing homes, and to low-income patients in community health centers – the very people who are currently underserved across the commonwealth.