The Dental Divide

One day this past March, Paul and Leeann Houston put their year-old daughter Haley into the car for a trip to the dentist. A rotten tooth was making her miserable and stunting her appetite. Unfortunately, the trip took five hours. That’s because they were driving from Mobile to a dental clinic at the University of […]

Many Alabama dentists simply refuse to accept Medicaid patients

In his own polite way, Dr. Michael Dasinger is quick to cuss Medicaid. He’s the only dentist in the South Alabama town of Brewton who treats children covered by Medicaid, a government health insurance program for the poor. But more than once he has almost quit out of frustration with low reimbursement rates, claims processing […]

Poll: State should help to add dentists

Three out of four Alabamians favor spending state funds to put more dentists in county health clinics so poor children can receive adequate dental care, according to a new Mobile Register-University of South Alabama poll. “That’s a beautiful figure,” said Burt Edelstein, director of the Children’s Dental Health Project, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group. U.S. […]