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Dental Care Proposal Essay

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Introduction: Massachusetts has made tremendous progress in expanding health insurance coverage and increasing availability of health care to its residents. The same cannot be said about expanding access to dental care. From 2008-2011, MassHealth, the Massachusetts Medicaid program paid $11.6 million for emergency room dental care for adults (Expanding Dental Access in Massachusetts, 2015). Despite this expenditure, the patient still requires a visit to the dentist since ERs are not equipped to treat dental problems and typically prescribe antibiotics and painkillers for severe cases (Expanding Dental Access in Massachusetts, 2015). Difficulties to dental care access are met by vulnerable communities including, residences of low-income communities, communities of color, seniors in long-term care, people with …show more content…

The DHAT will provide dental care to the community similar to a physician’s assistant in the field of medicine (Shoffstall-Cone, 2013). The DHAT program in Alaska requires that each student complete 2 years of post high school education in dental disease prevention and basic dental treatment skills (Shoffstall-Cone, 2013). Once licensed, DHAT are allowed to do evaluations, fluoride treatments, cavity excavations, fillings, and simple extractions (Murat, 2013). These routine works, previously done only by dentists along with being taught these skills in just to years is what adds to the controversy of the DHA program (Shoffstall-Cone, 2013). In Minnesota, dental therapists must have a baccalaureate degree in addition to required college coursework (Blue et al., 2015). As Muret claims, the model created in Alaska could be adapted anywhere as witnessed when dental therapists were authorized to “provide preventive and basic restorative care” in Minnesota in 2011 and Maine in 2014 (Expanding Dental Access in Massachusetts,

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