Public and Private Dental Safety Net in Iowa

The ACA’s Medicaid expansion and Marketplace options will expand the number of people with dental insurance coverage. This will place an additional load on public and private dental providers by increasing demand for services, particularly due to the severity of dental disease in populations who were formerly uninsured. 

The University of Iowa Public Policy Center evaluated the current and future capacity of the dental safety net in response to this increased demand. Their study of community health centers (public safety net) and private practitioners (private safety net) in Iowa serves as a way to model similar issues for other parts of the United States. The Public and Private Dental Safety Net: Implementation of the ACA and their Roles in Access to Care for Medicaid and Expansion Populations, is the third in a series of policy briefs describing policy-relevant topics for the primary safety net.

To read this full brief and the others in this series, click here.