An article from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health outlined the shortfalls of public dental insurance and offered potential improvements.
Reforms and changes that could improve access to care include establishing a required, standard dental benefit for adults enrolled in Medicaid, making insurance policies with dental coverage the default option in the ACA Marketplace, coordinating dental coverage for individuals who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid and investing in better data collection and reporting, according to a Feb. 20 news release from the university.
Medicaid, Medicare and the ACA Marketplace cover about 50% of adults in the U.S., but do not offer complete dental coverage to adults. In 2023, nearly 70 million adults in the U.S. did not have dental coverage.
Limited dental coverage causes a decrease in productivity. In 2019, the U.S. lost nearly $80 billion in productivity because of untreated oral diseases.
Benjamin Sommers, MD, PhD, and Hawazin Elani, PhD, wrote the article, which was published in JAMA Health Forum, the release said.