📜 Missouri’s Meidcaid impact

In this edition:

• 📜 Missouri’s Meidcaid impact

• 🤑 Dental Benefits’ impact on healthcare costs

• 3️⃣ 3 states passing dental legislation

• ⤵️ Youth ditch vapes for Zyn

• And more!

📜 Missouri’s Meidcaid impact

Missouri Medicaid began covering teeth cleanings, and almost no other routine dental work, for adults a few years ago.

But the bill for the dentist actually peering in your mouth to check teeth and gums went to the patient.

While some dentists wrote off the cost of the dental exam, many patients just stayed away from the dental chair and the potential bills it represented.

That changed July 1, when routine dental exams for adults were added to the state’s Medicaid coverage.

Health experts said it is a significant step in the state’s multiyear effort to improve dental access — and to boost overall health, beyond cavities, molars and gums. 

Although MO HealthNet still doesn’t cover expensive services like dentures and crowns, the state has gone from being one of the worst in the country for dental access two years ago to a model for other states.

In 2023, an additional 50,000 Medicaid recipients in Missouri got dental benefits. And 184 new dental offices began accepting Medicaid.

“We’ve seen changes in other states based on what has happened in Missouri,” said Dr. Aaron Bumann, a pediatric dentist in Liberty who serves as a public policy advocate for the Missouri Academy of Pediatric Dentistry. “That’s positive peer pressure.”

Dental benefits’ impact on healthcare costs

In 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) passed a resolution stating that “oral healthcare interventions should be included in universal health coverage programs.”

For Jake Bendler, division vice president, national accounts and national partners, at Ameritas, this is why dental is an essential benefit. “Nearly 40% of the world is affected by oral disease. Preventive dental care is a pathway to better oral and overall health.”

But it’s not just about sharing statistics to encourage employers to offer dental benefits. Bendler believes the plan usage and population health data insurers and brokers have access to can be used to create and evolve dental plans based on specific needs so employers and employees achieve better overall health and cost savings.

“We should showcase the correlation between good oral care and the reduction of costs spent on medical, drugs, and obviously dental,” he says.