Slidell dentist has spent 20 years helping needy kids
By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – One great thing in the United States is that no one has to go without a way to see a doctor, no matter what your financial situation is.
Thanks to the federal government program of Medicaid for low-earning or needy Americans, not only does every adult have a way to receive health care, but so do their children.
But what happens if reimbursements to doctors becomes so low that physicians decide it isn’t financially feasible to take those patients? After all, no doctor is forced to take Medicaid patients.
Thankfully, that has not become the case yet as enough doctors still accept Medicaid payments, however, few people probably realize that the lack of dentists willing to accept very low reimbursements for dental care has been a longtime problem since states must decide on their own how much to pay for the Medicaid dental program.
Dr. Don Donaldson saw the low Medicaid payment in Louisiana for dentists from the time he opened his first practice in 1972. While he decided on his own to still take many Medicaid children, he quickly realized he was in the minority.
“The reimbursement is so low that dentists actually lose money when you consider the regular paying patients we can’t see due to the time spent with Medicaid patients,” he explained.
Because of so few dentists willing to take Medicaid cases, “there was probably only 25 percent of kids with Medicaid who ever got to go to the dentist.”
While he was doing his best to see a lot of Medicaid children in his practice, he finally decided in 2000 to personally tackle the huge problem himself. That meant trying to convince the Louisiana Legislature to increase the reimbursement percentage for state dentists treating the kids, but also to put more money in the system so more children could be seen.
For his work, Donaldson was recently honored by the LDA with the Distinguished Service Award, the highest honor bestowed on any Louisiana dentist by the organization.
“The problem was that the Louisiana Dental Association (LDA) had no one in Baton Rouge and while they tried to get more support from the Legislature, it just wasn’t happening without a person really working the situation in Baton Rouge,” he said. “That’s when I decided I would be that person.”
Heading to Baton Rouge with no understanding of the system at all, Donaldson said “it took a while to learn the ropes, but little-by-little I started making connections and building relationships with the legislators,” he said.
He got on the agenda for the Appropriations Committee and put on a presentation that included pictures of kids with terrible teeth.
“That worked pretty well,” he said. “The lawmakers realized we had to help more of these kids.”
Within 10 years Donaldson had gotten such increased support that the number of state Medicaid children getting dental care rose from 25 percent to 50 percent.
“And we probably doubled the money the state allotted to the Medicaid dental fund,” he said.
Then he convinced the LDA to form a PAC so they could contribute to campaigns of state lawmakers.
“The truth is that every other group is contributing to state senators and representatives, and we needed to be doing that too. You may not like it, but it’s how the system works,” he said.
That added another huge load of work to Donaldson since someone needed to begin calling the approximately 2,000 dentists in the state and asking them to donate to the PAC.
“I probably spend several hours a day for three to four weeks making calls to dentists and asking them to donate,” he said. “But all this work has probably doubled the amount of money the Legislature is putting in the dental fund for Medicaid now, even though it’s a constant battle since some past years we had certain governors cut the fund, which means we had to work twice as hard after that.”
Donaldson even personally meets every year with all 40 members of the Louisiana Appropriations Committee, “since that’s the place everything starts when it comes to being considered in the state budget each year.”
The work from Donaldson has gotten noticed around the country as well. He has been asked to speak to the American Pediatric Academy’s national convention since “plenty of other states have this same problem.”
Even though he has been a dentist for 50 years and could easily enjoy retirement full time now, Donaldson said he won’t quit the work.
“Someone has to do it,” he said. “And I won’t abandon these kids.”