Oral Health Awareness Month

It is especially important for each Missourian to think about oral health -- your own, your family members' and your community's.

Too many of us consider oral health to be an issue that can be left for later. Leaving oral health for later is a bad deal. We are healthy only when we have good oral health. If we have other health challenges to manage -- heart disease and diabetes, for example -- having good oral health will make managing those conditions easier. We gain from good oral health, personally and communally.

This year the legislature and governor re-established dental benefits for adults eligible for MO HealthNet (Medicaid). For the first time since 2004 Medicaid-eligible adults have coverage for dental services. This will save us all money. Missouri has a trend of people who have no access to routine dental care visiting emergency rooms when the pain becomes unbearable. ERs are not equipped to provide dental care, so people are given painkillers and antibiotics, while the underlying dental condition remains untreated, almost guaranteeing a return ER trip and fostering dependence on painkillers. We look forward to seeing a drop in ER usage and pain from untreated dental conditions and the savings on health care costs that this sensible policy change will produce.

This August, think about oral health and thank Missouri legislators and Gov. Jay Nixon for setting Missouri oral health policy on the right track.

Gary Harbison, Executive Director, Missouri Coalition for Oral Health