The Seattle Occasions has appropriately recognized a significant well being downside in Washington: how dental insurance practices limit access to high-quality, reasonably priced oral well being care [“Seattle-area dental insurance is ‘like a joke.’ But few are smiling,” June 14, Business].
The American Dental Affiliation, Washington State Dental Affiliation and native dental societies are dedicated to rising entry to care for everybody within the state. Our members take part in free clinics across the state, and on any given day in Washington, you’ll discover dentists visiting colleges, touring to underserved communities in cellular clinics, or of their workplaces, offering uncompensated care to these in want.
We each have supplied volunteer care and know firsthand what a distinction dental care could make in folks’s lives. However volunteer efforts alone will not be sufficient to unravel this downside. That’s why dental organizations help the brand new School of Dental Medicine at Pacific Northwest College of Well being Sciences in Yakima, scheduled to open in fall 2025. PNWU won’t solely enhance the variety of new dentists, however its progressive academic mannequin will place dental college students in three federally certified well being facilities in Kennewick, Tacoma and Yakima to take care of underserved populations.
Equally, we supported elevated state funding to increase the College of Washington Faculty of Dentistry’s Regional Initiatives in Dental Training program. RIDE college students start their coaching in Spokane after which transfer to rural areas to finish their educations. Most go on to observe in rural communities, the place the necessity can be nice and difficult to satisfy.
Past training methods to extend the variety of training dentists, Washington should deal with underlying points with dental advantages identified within the article. Non-public dental “insurance coverage,” whether or not supplied by an employer or bought straight by a affected person, will not be truly insurance coverage. It’s a pay as you go advantages plan sometimes paying a bigger share of prices for the least costly care and a smaller proportion on dearer and complicated procedures. Plans have maintained the identical annual profit maximums (sometimes $1,500 to $2,000) for many years.
Whereas complete reform is required, one essential step the Legislature might take subsequent session is to enact laws making certain that sufferers are getting their cash’s price from the premiums they pay. They might try this by requiring that a minimum of 83% of the cash insurance coverage firms accumulate be spent on precise dental care. Plans which can be unable or unwilling to fulfill that proportion would both must problem refunds or be prohibited from working in Washington.
This easy requirement, overwhelmingly adopted by a 2022 poll measure in Massachusetts, would stop dental insurers from spending an inappropriate proportion of premium {dollars} on increased administrative bills, lavish govt salaries and heftier company income. It could additionally curb the present observe of providing much less fascinating plans to people and small companies to subsidize extra beneficiant advantages for these in massive employer teams. Most essential, it might cut back customers’ out-of-pocket bills for care.
Washington offers public dental advantages via its Medicaid program. We applaud the investments that the Legislature made lately to extend funding for pediatric and grownup care in these chronically underfunded applications. However these will increase have successfully solely taken reimbursements from 25% to round 45% of common business reimbursement charges. We stay dedicated to working with all stakeholders to enhance the state’s dental Medicaid program.
Lastly, lawmakers ought to assist cut back the intense dental hygienist scarcity that limits entry to essential preventive care and drives up prices. They will try this by creating a brand new license for dental assistants who carry out fundamental preventive care. This mannequin, utilized in tribal communities, would enable present hygienists, who’re in more and more quick provide, to deal with the extra advanced procedures they’re skilled to carry out. It could additionally present a practical profession ladder for extra younger folks seeking to construct careers in dentistry and assist entice a extra numerous workforce to serve all sufferers.
Entry to high quality, reasonably priced oral well being care is a significant problem in Washington. As dentists, we urge the Legislature to proceed our partnership in preventing this struggle.