Steve Higginbotham, CEO of Smile America Partners, spoke with Becker's about the current landscape of the Midwestern dental market and how it has shaped pediatric dentistry.
Note: This interview was edited for length and clarity.
Question: How would you describe the Midwestern dental market at this time? What stands out to you?
Steve Higginbotham: COVID-19 has had a major impact worldwide. Specifically in the Midwest, we know Medicaid enrollment increased as much as 10 percent over the past two years in some Midwestern states.
Smile America Partners has dental practice partnerships in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri and Ohio. These six states alone represent approximately 5.5 million children covered by Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, with more than 55 percent of those children not receiving preventative or routine care on an annual basis. In fact, over 1 million children in these six states have never seen a dentist.
What stands out to me is the clear need for an innovative solution to bring care to these underserved children in the Midwest. Now that schools are offering in-person learning, we are pushing hard to get dentists and dental teams back into the schools so children can get the dental care they missed due to the pandemic.
School-based programs have been recognized by the nation’s surgeon general as an effective means for obtaining good quality dental care and oral health education, further enabling a child to achieve their academic goals and overcome certain social determinants. Smile America and its clinical partners would like all states to consistently embrace the positive impact school-based dental programs can have on underserved populations.