Volunteering with Youth On Their Own and St. Elizabeth Clinic opens your eyes to a whole other world.
YOTO serves 1,500 of Pima County’s 6,500 homeless youth with the aim of seeing them graduate from high school. These are good kids who experienced bad situations, having been abandoned or walked away from a bad situation, such as a mother with drug issues.
Needless to say, dental care hasn’t been a priority in their young lives. That’s where other dentists and I come in, volunteering to help give these teens a better future. We pull wisdom teeth, perform root canals and provide cleanings for children who have never seen a hygienist. One patient required 20 fillings alone.
Dentist volunteers at YOTO, St. Elizabeth and HopeFest do this to give back to our communities. It’s our way of making Tucson a better place to live.
Now I hear that an out-of-state foundation is pushing the idea of creating a new mid-level dental position — dental therapists — to “solve” the problem of access to dental care. In other states, they labeled dentists who opposed them as greedy.
We’re not. We understand the issues surrounding access to dental care because we’ve been in the trenches, helping to bridge the gaps. We know dental therapists aren’t the answer. These providers would get only three years of post-secondary training, yet be allowed to perform irreversible surgical procedures such as drilling and removing teeth. Physician assistants and nurse practitioners must earn master’s degrees, and they don’t do surgery.
Arizona has no shortage of dentists, with more and more graduating from dental schools. The graphs I look at indicate we’re headed for an oversupply, which means some dentists will have to move to rural areas just to find work.
But bodies alone aren’t enough to extend access to dental care. During the recession, the Legislature zeroed out dental benefits for adults on AHCCCS. Some folks can’t afford to see a dentist or a dental therapist, which means the only dental care they’ll receive is from volunteer dentists. Will brand-new dental therapists paying off student loans give away their services for free? I doubt it.
Instead of adding the expense of creating a new level of provider, the Legislature should put its energy into restoring dental benefits for adult AHCCCS patients.
I’d also like to see more children going to the dentist. AHCCCS fully pays for children’s dental needs, yet fewer than half of those who are eligible use the benefit. We should have more community dental-health coordinators, who are based in the community or schools where they know the people. They emphasize preventive services, helping families take control of their oral health and connecting them with dentists and hygienists. This is a better way to increase access to dental care.
No matter what improvements we make or how many volunteers we have, some people will fall through the cracks. Almost 40 percent of the people with dental insurance don’t utilize it.
I’ve given three decades to Youth On Their Own and St. Elizabeth’s clinic because I recognized the great need. So do all dentists who volunteer at St. Elizabeth, YOTO, El Rio or the two-day HopeFest. Unlike an out-of-state foundation, we know the needs in our community. We want to be part of finding rational, effective solutions — something that will work. Dental therapists do not fit that solution.
