New Report: People with Disabilities Face Major Barriers to Accessing Oral Health Care
BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--According to new data released today by CareQuest Institute for Oral Health®, adults with disabilities face major barriers to accessing oral health care and are at greater risk for poor oral health outcomes.
'People with disabilities deserve the basic right to access the care they need, yet they continue to face significant obstacles in receiving adequate dental care,' said Melissa Burroughs, Director of Public Policy at CareQuest Institute for Oral Health.
Share
This data comes from the annual State of Oral Health Equity in America (SOHEA) survey, the largest nationally representative survey focused on adults' attitudes, experiences, and behaviors related to oral health.
Findings from the report show that for adults reporting at least one disability, factors including income, education, and having dental insurance are often linked to oral health outcomes such as self-rated oral health, recency of the last dental visit, having a dental home, and visiting an Emergency Department (ED) for dental care.
'People with disabilities deserve the basic right to access the care they need, yet they continue to face significant obstacles in receiving adequate dental care,' said Melissa Burroughs, Director of Public Policy at CareQuest Institute for Oral Health. 'This report gives us actionable insights to help guide our efforts to reduce inequities and improve the quality of life for individuals with disabilities.'
The results of the report reveal the following:
Fewer adults with a disability reported a dental visit in the past 12 months (56%) compared to those without a disability (70%).
Nearly a third of adults with a disability say their dental office doesn't provide special help and/or accommodations for their dental visit.
Adults with a disability are less likely to have dental insurance (66%) than those without one (76%).
One-quarter of adults with a disability (25%) said they delayed care, missed an appointment, or were unable to obtain needed health care, including oral health care.
Adults with a disability have significantly higher odds of reporting fair/poor oral health compared to adults without a disability.
More adults with a disability have visited an emergency department for dental care than adults without one.
To improve access to oral health care for people with disabilities, the report recommends enhancing Medicare and Medicaid coverage for adult dental care, providing additional training for providers on treating people with disabilities, and integrating medical and dental care with specialty oral health care.
Read the full report here.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Associated Press
28 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Georgia's experience raises red flags for Medicaid work requirement moving through Congress
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia's experiment with a work requirement for Medicaid offers a test of a similar mandate Republicans in Congress want to implement nationally, and advocates say the results so far should serve as a warning. Just days shy of its two-year anniversary, the Georgia Medicaid program is providing health coverage to about 7,500 low-income residents, up from 4,300 in the first year, but far fewer than the estimated 240,000 people who could qualify. The state had predicted at least 25,000 enrollees in the first year and nearly 50,000 in the second year. Applicants and beneficiaries have faced technical glitches and found it nearly impossible at times to reach staff for help, despite more than $50 million in federal and state spending on computer software and administration. The program, dubbed Georgia Pathways, had a backlog of more than 16,000 applications 14 months after its July 2023 launch, according to a renewal application Georgia submitted to the Trump administration in April. 'The data on the Pathways program speaks for itself,' said Laura Colbert, executive director of Georgians for a Healthy Future, an advocacy group that has called for a broader expansion of Medicaid without work requirements. 'There are just so many hurdles at every step of the way that it's just a really difficult program for people to enroll in and then to stay enrolled in too.' Georgia's rules A tax and spending bill backed by President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers that passed the U.S. House in May would require many able-bodied Medicaid enrollees under 65 to show that they work, volunteer or go to school. The bill is now in the Senate, where Republicans want significant changes. Pathways requires beneficiaries to perform 80 hours a month of work, volunteer activity, schooling or vocational rehabilitation. It's the only Medicaid program in the nation with a work requirement. But Georgia recently stopped checking each month whether beneficiaries were meeting the mandate. Colbert and other advocates view that as evidence that state staff was overburdened with reviewing proof-of-work documents. Fiona Roberts, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Community Health, said Gov. Brian Kemp has mandated that state agencies 'continually seek ways to make government more efficient and accessible.' Georgia's governor defends Pathways The governor's office defended the enrollment numbers. Kemp spokesman Garrison Douglas said the early projections for Pathways were made in 2019, when the state had a much larger pool of uninsured residents who could qualify for the program. In a statement, Douglas credited the Republican governor with bringing that number down significantly through 'historic job growth,' and said the decline in uninsured residents proved 'the governor's plan to address our healthcare needs is working.' For BeShea Terry, Pathways was a 'godsend.' After going without insurance for more than a year, Terry, 51, said Pathways allowed her to get a mammogram and other screening tests. Terry touts Pathways in a video on the program's website. But in a phone interview with The Associated Press, she said she also experienced problems. Numerous times, she received erroneous messages that she hadn't uploaded proof of her work hours. Then in December, her coverage was abruptly canceled — a mistake that took months of calls to a caseworker and visits to a state office to resolve, she said. 'It's a process,' she said. 'Keep continuing to call because your health is very important.' Health advocates say many low-income Americans may not have the time or resources. They are often struggling with food and housing needs. They are also more likely to have limited access to the internet and work informal jobs that don't produce pay stubs. Republican lawmakers have promoted work requirements as a way to boost employment, but most Medicaid recipients already work, and the vast majority who don't are in school, caring for someone, or sick or disabled. Kemp's administration has defended Pathways as a way to transition people to private health care. At least 1,000 people have left the program and obtained private insurance because their income increased, according to the governor's office. After a slow start, advertising and outreach efforts for Pathways have picked up over the last year. At a job fair in Atlanta on Thursday, staff handed out information about the program at a table with mints, hand sanitizer and other swag with the Pathways' logo. A wheel that people could spin for a prize sat on one end. Since Pathways imposed the work requirement only on newly eligible state residents, no one lost coverage. The Arkansas experiment That's a contrast with Arkansas, where 18,000 people were pushed off Medicaid within the first seven months of a 2018 work mandate that applied to some existing beneficiaries. A federal judge later blocked the requirement. The bill that passed the U.S. House would likely cause an estimated 5.2 million people to lose health coverage, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released Wednesday. Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has proposed reviving the work mandate but without requiring people to regularly report employment hours. Instead, the state would rely on existing data to determine enrollees who were not meeting goals for employment and other markers and refer those people to coaches before any decision to suspend them. Arkansas is among at least 10 states pursuing work requirements for their Medicaid programs separate from the effort in Congress. Republican state Sen. Missy Irvin said Arkansas' new initiative aims to understand who the beneficiaries are and what challenges they face. 'We want you to be able to take care of yourself and your family, your loved ones and everybody else,' Irvin said. 'How can we help you? Being a successful individual is a healthy individual.' ___ Associated Press writers Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee, Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Geoff Mulvihill in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
Forbes
28 minutes ago
- Forbes
Health Insurers Call Out Trump On Promise To Not Cut Seniors' Medicare
The nation's health insurance companies say legislation wending its way through the Republican-controlled Congress would break a promise by Donald Trump and the GOP not to cut Medicare benefits to seniors. It's the latest part of the healthcare industry to fight back against proposed federal cuts in healthcare benefits to millions of Americans. Already, physicians led by the American Medical Association have launched an ad campaign targeting U.S. Senators in an effort to thwart the budget legislation. Legislation known as the 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act' that narrowly passed the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives two weeks ago would reduce federal Medicaid spending by $793 billion and increase the number of uninsured by 7.8 million, a KFF analysis shows. But the powerful lobby, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) said Medicare, too, would be cut and raise costs on millions of seniors. AHIP's members include some of the nation's largest health insurers, including Elevance Health, Humana, CVS Health's Aetna and an array of Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans. These health insurers, including UnitedHealth Group's UnitedHealthcare, provide health benefits to more than half of the nation's eligible seniors through privatized coverage known as Medicare Advantage. The plans contract with the federal government to provide traditional coverage available in traditional Medicare plus extra benefits and services to seniors, such as disease management and nurse help hotlines with some also offering vision, dental care and wellness programs. 'The President and Congressional leaders made a clear promise to seniors that there would be no cuts to Medicare as part of the budget reconciliation legislation," AHIP President and CEO Mike Tuffin said Monday. 'Last-minute attempts to cut Medicare Advantage to fund other priorities would directly undermine that promise and lead to higher costs and reductions in benefits for more than 34 million seniors,' Tuffin said. "We oppose cuts to Medicare Advantage, including the No UPCODE Act, and urge Congress to keep the promise to America's seniors.' Any loss in health plan members covered by Medicare Advantage would be an added blow to health insurers. They need large numbers of subscribers paying premiums to cover their costs. Many of these same health insurers have been hit hard by rising costs from an influx of seniors purchasing Medicare Advantage.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
How many Americans would lose health care coverage under the Republicans' megabill?
There's some understandable confusion over just how many Americans would lose their health care coverage under the Republicans' domestic policy mega bill — the inaptly named 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act.' For example, Russell Vought, the far-right director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told CNN last week that 'no one will lose coverage as a result of this bill.' That might've sounded encouraging to health care advocates, but there's overwhelming evidence to the contrary. A report from The Associated Press, for example, on the latest Congressional Budget Office score, said that 10.9 million Americans would lose their coverage if the GOP legislation became law. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, however, said 'nearly 14 million' would join the ranks of the uninsured. Meanwhile, a variety of prominent Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, have said the actual number would be 16 million. So, which is it? I reached out to the nice folks at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to help sort this out, and they referred me to the CBPP's helpful breakdown of the data. Roughly 16 million people by 2034 would lose health coverage and become uninsured because of the Medicaid cuts, the bill's failure to extend enhanced premium tax credits for ACA marketplace coverage, and other harmful ACA marketplace changes, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). This gets a little wonky, but according to the CBO's nonpartisan analysis, the Republicans' Medicaid cuts alone, if implemented, would strip coverage from 7.8 million people. The same analysis added, however, that 4 million people would become uninsured due to cuts to Affordable Care Act marketplaces, and an additional 4.2 million people would lose their coverage because the Republicans' package fails to extend the Biden-era subsidies (the premium tax credit enhancements) that made ACA plans far more affordable. And that is where the overall tally comes from: 7.8 million + 4 million + 4.2 million = 16 million. When Trump and his party tried to 'repeal and replace' the ACA eight years ago, the CBO determined that the Republicans' plan would take health coverage from 23 million people, which was enough to cause a couple of Senate Republicans — Maine's Susan Collins and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski — to balk. (The late Sen. John McCain also gave the bill a thumbs-down, objecting to the party's rushed and incoherent process.) Eight years later, there's a reason the new Republican plan is being derided as 'Obamacare-repeal lite': Scrapping coverage from 16 million is certainly within shouting distance of ending coverage for 23 million, especially given the fact that the GOP's reconciliation package isn't exclusively a health care bill. To date, no Congress has ever approved legislation that would force so many people to lose their health security. Watch this space. This article was originally published on
