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Heritage Health advocates for Medicaid dental bill

| February 23, 2018 12:00 AM

Heritage Health, the region’s largest primary care provider, weighed in Thursday on a bill intended to help about 30,000 of Idaho’s poorest residents receive preventive dental care.

House Bill 465 was passed Feb. 12 by the Idaho House of Represenatatives and the Senate is expected to vote on it early next week.

The proposed legislation restores preventive dental care to adults on basic Medicaid, coverage that was removed in 2011 during the Great Recession.

“This is an important health care bill for Idahoans,” said Heritage Health CEO Mike Baker, in a news release. “If we can lower the number of emergency room visits for dental emergencies it will lower health care costs for everyone. We strongly support this legislation and believe it is the right thing to do.”

The bill is intended to help Idaho residents who fall below 26 percent of the federal poverty guidelines. For example, an adult with two children making less than $5,195 annually would qualify for the program.

Heritage Health spoke with Rep. Eric Redman, R-Athol, who voted for the measure.

“It’s for the people who are least able to go to the dentist and quite often this has to do with mental health issues,” Redman said.

Redman said he supports the legislation for moral reasons as well as fiscal ones.

“I am looking at the dollars spent and there’s no doubt in my mind that it gets more expensive if you don’t take care of problems up front,” said Redman. “If you want a cavity to become a root canal it’s going to cost more. We shouldn’t wait for preventable problems to become diseases in the body.”

In the House, Reps. Paul Amador and Luke Malek, Republicans from Coeur d’Alene, also voted in favor of the legislation. Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, and Reps. Don Cheatham and Ron Mendive, Republicans from Post Falls, opposed it.

The bill would not expand the Medicaid program by adding new enrollees. This only applies to adults with children that are enrolled in Medicaid already.

Heritage Health noted that Sen. Mary Souza, R-Coeur d’Alene, cast a key vote to advance the legislation to the Senate floor.

“Sen. Souza deserves a ton of credit for advancing this bill,” said Baker. “Heritage Health really appreciates her commitment to helping our most vulnerable patients.”

The Idaho Legislature eliminated all dental services to adults on basic Medicaid during the recession in 2011. Emergency dental services were restored for this low-income population in 2014. However, preventive care services are not covered.

The lack of preventive dental care places a heavy financial burden on the health care system, according to Heritage Health.

“Patients are going to the emergency room and it’s well known that is very costly,” said Dr. Chace Mickelson, associate dental director for Heritage Health, in the release. “If it’s 2 a.m. and they’re in acute pain, they’re going to the ER.”

But a trip to the emergency room isn’t the end of it.

“Every week I see patients who have come just from the emergency room,” said Mickelson. “They’re facing major complications from infections that require surgeries and rounds of IV antibiotics to address the problem. Those costs fall on the taxpayers who eventually end up paying for that.”

Heritage Health delivers dental care to 15,000 patients annually, and many of them would benefit from the bill’s passage, said the health care provider’s news release.

“They may have a small cavity, but it’s not covered so the only option we have is extraction,” said Mickelson. “They may need a root canal, but they put it off because they don’t have the money or the insurance to cover it. Many of those patients could have prevented serious problems in their mouth if they had been able to access preventive care.”

The lack of good dental health also impacts a person’s ability to work and find a job.

“If a person is in terrible pain, they’re not able to show up to work,” said Mickelson. “Losing teeth impacts a person’s self-confidence and ability to do well in social situations. The lack of preventive care means patients are suffering in unfortunate ways.”