Louisville dental school ranked second in U.S. by website that surveys students and recent graduates

The University of Louisville School of Dentistry is ranked second among dental schools in the U.S. by GraduatePrograms.com, a peer-written rating and review site for graduate schools. Last year the school ranked fourth. The No. 1-ranked program on the site was Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, Calif.

Students and recent graduates, contacted via scholarship entries and social media, rate schools on 15 areas, including academic competitiveness, workload and faculty accessibility, a university news release said.

 “It is gratifying to know that students at the UofL School of Dentistry value their experience in the program, even if it is from a limited sampling,” Dean John Sauk said in the release. “In any case, we will persevere to continually seek to improve the quality of our educational programs and develop the empathy and skills of the professionals we educate.”

More dental patients using ERs, showing lack of dental coverage, shortage of dentists and the stepchild status of oral health

More patients are going to hospital emergency rooms for dental care, illustrating how oral health remains the stepchild of the health system despite health-care reform.

"An analysis of the most recent federal data by the American Dental Association shows dental ER visits doubled from 1.1 million in 2000 to 2.2 million in 2012, or one visit every 15 seconds, Laura Ungar reports for The Courier-Journal and USA Today.

Christopher Smith of Jeffersonville, Ind., had a dental
infection that put him in a Louisville hospital for a
week. (Courier-Journal photo by Sam Upshaw Jr.)

"This is something I deal with daily," Dr. George Kushner, director of the oral and maxillofacial surgery program at the University of Louisville, told Ungar. "People still die from their teeth in the U.S."

A longstanding federal law requires ERs to treat patients regardless of their ability to pay. "Although they often provide little more than painkillers and antibiotics to dental patients, the visits cost more than three times as much as a routine dental visit, averaging $749 if the patient isn't hospitalized — and costing the U.S. health care system $1.6 billion a year," Ungar reports.

Private dental insurance is not common. "Just over a third of working-age adults nationally, and 64 percent of seniors, lacked dental coverage of any kind in 2012, meaning they had to pay for everything out of pocket," Ungar writes. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act "requires health plans to cover dental services for children but not adults," and "Medicare generally doesn't cover dental care at all," she notes.

In Kentucky, the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare has increased dental visits in the program by 37 percent, but it offers "only a short list of dental services," such as extractions, which patients often choose instead of restorative work, for which they would have to pay.

Another big issue is that many dentists don't accept Medicaid, which pays them only 41 percent of private reimbursement, Ungar reports. Also, Kentucky has a shortage of dentists. "A 2013 workforce study by Deloitte Consulting found the state needs 612 more to meet demand," Ungar notes.

More dentists would encourage more preventive treatment, which dentists say would save a lot of money. "If we were going to the dentist more often, we could avoid a lot of this," Dr. Ruchi Sahota, a California dentist and consumer adviser for the ADA, told Ungar. "Prevention is priceless."

Fewer than 60 percent of Kentuckians saw a dentist in 2013, making their dental-visit frequency 43rd in the nation, according to the Kentucky Health Issues Poll.

Early-childhood specialists want to help parents teach kids good oral-health habits; 40 percent have cavities by kindergarten

A recent report by the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry showed that cavities are the most chronic disease for young children in the U.S. More than 40 percent of children suffer from tooth decay before kindergarten, Greg Stotelmyer reports for Public News Service. Groups of early-childhood professionals gathered in Louisville Thursday to learn how to educate parents to help improve their children's oral health.

Dr. Laura Hancock Jones, an outreach dentist with the University of Kentucky, emphasized the importance of teaching children how to brush their teeth and avoid too many sugary drinks before they turn 2. "We really need to foster the oral-health knowledge of those parents and not really delay that until [their children] are into preschool or elementary population," she said.

Molly Oliver, who runs a day-care center for the Trigg County school system, is one of those learning how to teach parents how to foster good health habits in their children. "We want to help build a relationship with our parents to try to help the parents and the children have better oral health for their families," she said.

Jones noted that food and beverage companies' marketing is making it harder for parents to steer their children away from unhealthy products. Parents need to make sure their children are brushing their teeth both morning and night. "And, for parents to understand that until their child is in second grade, they don't have the dexterity to get the job done themselves," she said. "You know, it's not enough for a parent to say, 'Hey, go brush your teeth,' when you're dealing with a 3-year-old. They still need to be in there doing the work themselves."

The Kentucky Oral Health Coalition is partnering with the UCLA Health Care Institute and the Governor's Office of Early Childhood to offer $1,000 grants to train early childhood professionals in 10 communities, Stotelmyer reports. The trainers will strive to provide children with the support of adults—both parents and child care professionals—who can help them understand how to maintain good oral health. (Read more)