Why Americans Are Avoiding The Dentist
Oral health is an important driver of our overall health. In fact, it has been said that oral health is a window to your overall health. Poor oral health is not just bad for your mouth, it can lead to a host of other conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, pneumonia, and endocarditis. Yet, many Americans are unable to access dental care. Here’s why.
Dental Care is Costly
Millions of Americans do not have any dental insurance and the costs of dental care are so great that it is out of reach for them. In fact, two-thirds of Medicare beneficiaries, some 37 million people, cannot afford dental care, and 74 million people, nearly a quarter of Americans, have no dental insurance.
Access to dental care is determined along racial and economic lines: black and Hispanic Americans and lower-income Americans have higher rates of poor oral health than the rest of the country. Over half of Americans actively avoid or just delay seeking dental care, given the costs.
Dental insurance alone is insufficient for many of those with dental insurance. When you consider that 39% of Americans could afford to pay for a $1,000 emergency expense out-of-pocket, the scale of the problem becomes even clearer. A person with an emergency dental problem is unlikely to be able to afford to get treatment.
Given the cost of dental care, many people are forced to put dental care down on their list of priorities until they simply cannot afford to ignore the problem. Dental care is placed below the need to pay rent, buy groceries, and obtain other essential daily items.
Insurance terms don’t help patients much. Many procedures are defined as “elective” even if avoiding having them done could have a negative impact on oral and overall health. So many people have to use their own money for things like cleanings, even if they have dental insurance.
Unfortunately, the result is that millions of Americans are deferring treatment for dental problems, compounding the severity of those problems and impacting their oral and overall health. Perversely, over time, it means that those people face large future health related bills.
According to GA Family Dental & Facial Aesthetics, solutions are needed in order to widen access to dental care to as many Americans as possible. Without solutions, we face a mounting dental care and overall health care crisis.
Alternative Financing
Traditionally, when faced with emergency situations, people have had to turn to their debit and credit cards. However, recently, alternative methods have arisen.
One such alternative financing method is “buy now, pay later” (BNPL), which some lenders are offering, enabling people to pay for dental procedures. BNPL lenders pay your dental care provider in exchange for which you pay them back at a fixed-rate.
This is an evolution from the old “pay-in-four”, providing fixed-rate loans with no deferred or back interest and zero recalculations. Many dental care providers have found that it is helpful for them to offer financing like this for their patients. Without such solutions, dentists are forced to turn away patients in need.
