Home Visiting Programs at the Front End of an Oral Health System: Background and Program Design

Abstract

ABSTRACTMany low-income families with young children do not have a regular source of dental care and oral health coaching and advice. Furthermore, many screening and referral systems produce little benefit because very few dental providers accept referrals from patients with Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid program) and because many families face significant challenges getting to dental appointments even if they are available. One solution is to partner with early childhood home visiting programs to serve as a front end for a dental care system. This partnership can 1) identify families with children at highest risk for dental disease so scarce care coordination resources can be focused on those with the greatest need, 2) identify conditions and behaviors most likely to lead to dental disease and provide immediate and ongoing counseling and support for adoption of healthy behaviors, and 3) create a dental care system that can reach traditionally underserved groups, promote adoption of “mouth healthy habits,” and focus scarce dental professional resources on those in need of more complex services.

Keywords

• Community health
• access to care
• dental care delivery systems
• oral health systems
• underserved population
• workforce