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The Economics of Medicaid Dental Care: How Global Budget Methods Affect Reimbursement
Author(s) -
Squillace Joseph
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
poverty and public policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.206
H-Index - 4
ISSN - 1944-2858
DOI - 10.2202/1944-2858.1008
Subject(s) - medicaid , reimbursement , affect (linguistics) , dental care , business , actuarial science , oral health , health care , public economics , family medicine , medicine , economics , psychology , economic growth , communication
Abstract The primary factor in level of participation by dentists in Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance (SCHIP) programs is the level of reimbursement received. The purpose of this article is to describe how the use of the global budget method used by managed care vendors, or their subcontractors, discourages dentists from participating in Medicaid/SCHIP programs, ultimately decreasing access to oral health care for the lower‐income populations. The author posits that the global budget method is misapplied to Medicaid/SCHIP systems, and the experience of Missouri is used to demonstrate problems in reimbursement to dental providers.