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NEW BRITAIN - President & CEO Patricia Baker of the Connecticut Health Foundation (CT Health) was invited by both the Public Health and the Human Services committees to testify about new research that supports the need to increase in access to oral health care for children on HUSKY A. Baker referred to the foundation's recently released policy briefs, entitled HUSKY A Dental Care: Avoiding the Repercussions of Poor Dental Care for Children on Medicaid, concerning some of the barriers and solutions to providing dental care to the state's more than a quarter of a million HUSKY A children; and HUSKY A Dental Care: Financial Strategies, which looks at enrollment, fees, utilization and expenses. "Despite the foundation's $8 million investment to improve dental care utilization among children insured under HUSKY in Connecticut's eight largest cities, access to oral health care remains a major barrier in treating the most common and treatable chronic childhood disease - tooth decay," says Baker. "Tooth decay is five times more common than asthma and dental pain causes children to miss school at a rate of three absences per 100 children." CT Health has commissioned research over the past seven years to explore strategies to expand access and utilization of oral health services for publicly-insured children, and has served as a source of information for decision makers, legislators, advocates, and community-based organizations. Some of the points Baker highlighted during her testimony (PDF) include: - The research illustrates a diminishing oral health work force, a limited capacity safety net system and low Medicaid reimbursement rates all contribute to Connecticut's access crisis.
- The percentage of HUSKY children able to see a dentist is the lowest among all the New England states. Less than one-half of those requiring treatment actually receive it.
- While community and school health clinics are an important service system, and provide about one-third of the dental care for children on HUSKY, the private provider system provides two-thirds of care and must be included in any solution to increase access to care.
- Only 33 percent of the state's HUSKY A recipients can locate and visit a dentist in a year, compared to 75 percent of state employees.
- In South Carolina, the number of participating providers increased by 43 percent when reimbursement rates were raised to the 75th percentile. Nine other states experienced similar increases in participating providers after raising the Medicaid reimbursement to the 75th percentile or a comparable market-based rate.
- Currently, less than 15 percent of all Connecticut providers participate in HUSKY A due to low reimbursement fees. In a recent survey, 400 Connecticut dentists responded that they would participate in the HUSKY program if fees were raised to the 70th percentile--meaning that 70 percent of private dentists will charge this fee or less as their normal and customary fee.
- Connecticut could begin to fulfill its obligation to HUSKY children to provide real access to oral health services with an initial investment of $21 million in the first year, half of which would be eligible for a 50 percent federal match totaling $10.5 million.
"Connecticut's oral health care system needs both a strong public safety net system as well as an improved participation rate among private providers to ensure that HUSKY children have real access to oral health services, says Baker." Please visit www.cthealth.org to review the policy briefs and testimonies, or contact Maryland Grier, Public Affairs Officer at 860.224.2200, cell: 860 888 6616 or maryland@cthealth.org. If you would like to schedule an interview with Baker and oral health policy brief author Joanna Douglass, please contact Grier. The Connecticut Health Foundation (CT Health) is the state's largest independent, non-profit grantmaking foundation dedicated to improving the health of the people of Connecticut through systemic change, program innovation and health policy analysis. Since it was established in July of 1999, CT Health has awarded 348 grants in 43 cities and towns totaling over $28.2 million primarily in three priority areas - children's mental health, racial and ethnic health disparities, and oral health. Download the testimony  An Act Concerning Access to Oral Health Care -- Testimony regarding H.B. 7069 (PDF)
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