Oral Health: An Integral Part of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program with Sayo Adunola

Today on the blog, we welcome Sayo Adunola, a Senior PCH student preparing to start dental school next fall.

Over the next weeks and months, she'll be providing us with insight and analysis into some current health trends, including today's posting on the recently-passed Children's Health Insurance bill. Enjoy:

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Oral Health: An Integral Part of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program

The State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP, formerly SCHIP) helps insure low-income children who are ineligible for Medicaid but cannot afford private insurance. On February 4, Congress reauthorized the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and President Obama signed the bill into law. Since CHIP is the second bill the President signed into law, it is evident that health care for children is a major priority for his administration.

In a recent statement, the Executive Director of the American Public Health Association, Georges C. Benjamin, said that he is pleased about the new law. Dr. Benjamin mentioned that as a result of “this measure, more than 4 million additional kids from low-income families will now have access to health care.”

It is fitting that February was “Children’s Dental Health Month," as CHIP includes eight new dental provisions. The Children's Dental Health Project (CDHP) highlights the following eight dental provisions included in CHIP:

• Dental coverage guarantee: Requires that states provide dental coverage for CHIP beneficiaries.
• Dental Wrap-Around Benefit Option: Allows states to provide dental coverage that “wraps” around commercial medical coverage for children who have commercial medical but no dental insurance.
• Mandatory performance reporting: Establishes a requirement that states report on CHIP dental program performance.
• Quality assurance: Requires federal reports on the quality of children’s health care under Medicaid and CHIP and specifies that these reports must include information on the “status of efforts to improve dental care.”
• New Parent Education: Establishes a requirement that parents of newborns be informed of risks for early childhood caries and its prevention.
• Allowance of Public-Private Contracting: Clarification that federally qualified health centers may contract with private dentists in order to expand their capacity to deliver dental services to their clients.
• Dental Access and Mid-level Study: Governmental Accountability Office study “that examines (A) access to dental services by children in underserved areas; (B) children's access to oral health care, including preventive and restorative services, under Medicaid and CHIP.
• Mandatory information for beneficiaries: Requires that enrollees have ready access to information on dental providers and on the dental benefits contained in their insurance.
  

The issue of dental care became important to Congress after the death of Deamonte Driver. According to a recent article in the Washington Post, Deamonte was a 12-year-old boy who died in 2007 because the infection from his decayed tooth spread to his brain. This tragedy moved laymen, congressmen and many others.

Particularly, Congressman Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD) was inspired by Deamonte’s story and he has been a major advocate for the passage of the CHIP bill. Congressman Cummings stated, “[From] Deamonte Driver’s tragic death, we will bring life. Deamonte’s case was rare and extreme, but he was by no means alone in his suffering. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that dental decay is the single most common chronic disease in US children-yet it is preventable.”

The signing of CHIP into law gives many individuals hope that children from low-income families will finally have access to quality care. Advocates for CHIP are pleased that the President signed the bill, but it is important to understand that the struggle of providing quality care to children is not over. This major accomplishment is noteworthy; however, it is important for advocates to continue to fight to improve the state of oral health care for American children.

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Thanks to Sayo Adunola for her work on this post. Adunola is a Senior Public and Community Health and Pre-Dental who will be attending University of Maryland Dental School next Fall.
Adunola is interning for Dr. Dushanka Kleinmanworking on such projects as assiting with the“Deamonte Driver Dental Project,” coordinating oral health seminars, and attending seminars and workshops like the Healthy People 2020 workshop.

If you are a SPH student and would also like to write for the blog, contact us at rmcmahon at umd dot edu and we'll set something up. For now, look for more of Sayo's work soon.