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A mobile dental office founded a year after a Largo boy died from complications from an untreated tooth infection is on track to serve Medicaid-eligible and uninsured Prince George's County children, Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) announced Nov. 13.
The mobile office will target nine county schools within a 10- to 15-minute radius of each other — including Seat Pleasant Elementary School in Seat Pleasant and Concord Elementary School in District Heights — to identify Medicaid-eligible and underserved children who need dental care, said Hazel Harper, a Washington, D.C. dentist, who is the co-founder and director of the Deamonte Driver Dental Project.
The Deamonte Driver Dental Project was founded in February, one year after 12-year-old Deamonte Driver died from complications of an untreated tooth infection that eventually moved to his brain, Harper said. He died six weeks after the brain surgery.
The state gave the Prince George's County Health Department $288,000 to pay for the mobile office.
The announcement was made at The Foundation School in Largo, where Deamonte attended. His mother, Elise, graduated from the Dental Assistant program at Prince George's Community College the day before, said Laurie Norris, a legal aid attorney for the Public Justice Center in Baltimore representing the Driver family.
Deamonte's mother, grandmother and uncle were present for the announcement, but with a stiff upper lip.
"It doesn't bring him back, but I hope it can do something for other kids," said Franklin Driver, Deamonte's uncle. "It should help."
The Deamonte Driver Dental Project was initiated by the Robert T. Freeman Dental Society Foundation, an African-American dentist association from Prince George's County and Washington, D.C. The project has expanded to a partnership between O'Malley, the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the General Assembly.
Harper said the project wants to increase the number of dental medical providers, the number of children eligible for a Medicaid program who aren't yet enrolled and identify neighborhood dentists in the county near the nine targeted county elementary schools.
The project also wants to increase awareness of the link between oral and overall health and establish a child dental hygiene hotline so children don't go more than 24 hours without a dentist if they need one, she said.
The state also raised reimbursement rates July 1for dentists treating Medicaid children with the hope of more dentists participating to serve more people, including the 300,000 children in Maryland still waiting for dental care, O'Malley said. For example, the rate for sealants was raised from $9 to $33.
There are 90 new dentists in the state who are new Medicaid dental providers, said Norman Tinanoff, chair of the department of health promotion and policy at the University of Maryland Dental School in Baltimore. Although 671 dentists in the state are registered Medicaid providers, 364 dentists bill more than $10,000, making only half of the registered providers active.
To be a Medicaid provider, dentists must obtain a Medicaid provider number through the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. They must then contact the Managed Care Organization(s) they wish to participate with. As of July 1, 2009, the system will change and there will only be one vendor. Dentists who sign up before the switch will be rolled over to the new system.
O'Malley included $2 million in the 2009 state budget to expand dental care in areas of the state that otherwise don't have access. The money will also be used to start a mobile school-based screening and treatment center. The budget also allows for $14 million in state and federal funds to increase these payment rates, which is the first of three annual increases.
"We still have a long way to go — we aren't done making progress," O'Malley said.
