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They've got a reason to smile

By JODIE TILLMAN
Published February 10, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Lance Aram Rothstein] Alex Rodriguez, 4, has his teeth cleaned friday at PHCC in New Port Richey. He always wears his Spider-Man slippers to the doctor's office. His mom says they make him feel better.

NEW PORT RICHEY - Nearly two years ago, Ivan West lost his job as a mortgage banker - and the dental benefits that paid for his daughter's smile.

That's why West and his 10-year-old were waiting at a crowded free dental event for children on Friday. It was the girl's first cleaning and check-up in two years.

"I'm in between jobs," said West. To pay for regular dental visits, "I need benefits."

West's daughter was one of more than 70 Pasco County schoolchildren who had visited Pasco-Hernando Community College by early Friday afternoon for the event, called Give Kids A Smile Day.

The event is aimed at uninsured children in Pasco whose parents may fall into a tricky income bracket: They're not poor enough for the children to qualify for Medicaid and not wealthy enough to pay dentists out of pocket.

"Every kid who comes here has fallen through the cracks," said Melanie Hagerty, a registered nurse with the Pasco school district who helped organize the National Children's Dental Health Month event and who puts the number of uninsured children in Pasco at least in the hundreds.

Meanwhile, less than 10 miles away Friday afternoon, hundreds of adults were camped out at Monticciolo Dentistry for the New Port Richey practice's annual free clinic day.

Shanna Howard, a 24-year-old Land O'Lakes resident who is eight months pregnant, arrived about 5 a.m. Friday and was still No. 242 in line.

She said a state insurance plan for pregnant women would pay about 25 percent of a dentist bill. But for Howard, who hasn't been to a dentist in a decade because of a lack of insurance and who has developed painful abscesses, that isn't enough.

"That's nothing when you have to get four teeth pulled," she said.

Together, the images at the Friday events provided a powerful illustration of the national problem of getting dental care to uninsured and underinsured children and adults. The dilemma is a familiar one to outgoing county health director Dr. Marc Yacht, who talked and wrote about it often during his tenure.

"Dental issues are often forgotten when we talk about universal health care," said Yacht.

And there's more to good oral health than pretty white teeth. Studies in recent years have found connections between gum disease and cardiovascular disease as well as between gum disease and diabetes, said Dr. Ray Anel, who runs the county's dental clinic on Little Road.

The county clinic makes nearly 200 appointments a month for patients, ranging from children with Medicaid coverage to uninsured adults who pay based on their income. Most pay nothing.

Unfortunately, he said, many of the adult patients require extensive dental work because they have not taken care of their teeth or seen a dentist on a regular basis.

Volunteers at the PHCC event said Friday that part of their goal is to help make sure children learn good dental health habits and don't end up like the adults who pop into a dentist's office only when they need emergency work.

"We're trying to catch them when they're young," said Michelle Cooper, the office manager with Lakeview Family Dentistry in Bayonet Point, who helped organize the PHCC event.

Anel said the problem is far too complicated to be solved simply by building more free and low-cost dental clinics. He noted, for instance, that nearly 30 percent of his patients each day don't show up for their scheduled appointments because they say they couldn't find a ride or a babysitter or couldn't get off work, for instance.

And just because children on Medicaid qualify for dental care, that doesn't mean their families take advantage of the benefit.

Only 20 percent of Florida children enrolled in Medicaid received any dental service in 2005, according to a state-by-state analysis by the American Dental Association. Nationwide that year, those percentages ranged from a low of 8 percent in Kentucky to a high of 49 percent in Vermont.

"It's a lot more involved," Anel said, "and it's going to take some thinking about how to solve it."

Jodie Tillman can be reached at 727 869-6247 or jtillman@sptimes.com.

[Last modified February 10, 2007, 00:53:53]