Dental care: Tennessee’s forgotten health crisis

( Photo: File / Gannett Tennessee )

Last week I examined a 29-year-old woman who had never before seen a dentist. As I probed her mouth she reacted with a battery of questions: What are you doing? What’s that for? How does it look?

It looked awful. Her teeth are decayed, her gums are compromised from periodontal disease and she suffers from significant dental pain, which led to the visit.

Such cases are far more common than you might imagine. Every week I treat patients in their 20s whose mouths are filled with decay, after years of ignoring their oral health. Some, like the woman described above, grow up without dentists, and as adults suffer from “dental phobia.” So rather than visiting a dentist they rely solely on emergency room visits for pain relief, which adds to congestion and unnecessary expense at our hospitals.

The sad fact is Tennessee is experiencing a serious dental health crisis. Over one-third of the population in our state did not visit a dentist in the past year, nearly one-third (31.5 percent) of Tennesseans over the age of 65 have lost all their teeth, and more than half (53 percent) have lost six or more teeth, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A key cause of this problem is a shortage of dentists. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services categorizes 94 percent of Tennessee counties (89 of 95) as having dental health professional shortage areas.

Far too many in our community are not gaining access to dental care despite the efforts of committed dental professionals and social service organizations. Case in point: It took just a few minutes to book every available appointment for a recent Saturday at 11 Aspen Dental offices in Tennessee that volunteered a free day of dental services for those in need as part of the Healthy Mouth Movement.

Many graduating dentists are attracted to the wealthy major metropolitan centers on the coasts, leaving states like Tennessee with a shortage of dentists. Even with a fine dental school in Nashville at Meharry Medical College, where I received my degree, we have not been able to fill the gap.

Sadly, dental care is a neglected, often ignored, health care service. Because tens of millions of Americans lack dental insurance or have inadequate coverage, dentistry is widely regarded as discretionary, a “luxury” and not a necessity. When forced to choose between the urgency of fixing the car that you need to get you to work every day and a preventive visit to the dentist, guess which demand on the pocketbook wins out? It’s a sobering reality, but when times get tough — as they did for so many during the Great Recession — people put off visits to the dentist.

The situation must change. An increasing number of dentists like me are opting to buck the tradition of “going it alone” and working with dental support organizations that provide “back office” business services, allowing dentists not only to offer care at lower prices, but also to spend more time with patients.

For too many people, teeth are simply not important until they hurt. But the fact is dental care is an essential health care service. No American should grow up without regular visits to a dentist.

Source:
The Tenessean