Kirkland dentist offers help to parents
Published 3:46 pm Wednesday, February 16, 2011
As many as one in five children in King County may now be going without very basic dental care, according to Dr. Lindsay Barry of Kirkland.
“As the economy suffers many families can no longer afford the very basics, including dental care. This means that common childhood dental problems go undiagnosed, which then only makes that dental problem much worse down the road,” said Barry.
Barry’s answer to the problem was to help create a new national network of reduced fee dental services called Quality Dental Plan (QDP). Kirkland was one of the first cities in the nation to fully implement this plan, which includes free basic dental checkups for children and their parents when they first join.
“We looked at the costs associated with giving quality dental care to our patients and we saw that we could significantly reduce our treatment rates if we saw patients early in the process and encouraged the whole family to take part in good and on-going care,” said Barry.
She points out that many common dental health problems, especially among children, are easily addressed, but become much more costly and time consuming if left unattended.
“When a kid is in pain they miss school. Even worse, the cost to treat a painful situation can be a three or four times more expensive than it would have been if the problem had been diagnosed a few months earlier.”
QDP has begun to receive national attention for its innovative approach to health care, with Barry being one of the first in the nation to understand the significance.
“So much of our cost to provide dental services to the community goes to things that really don’t help our patients like insurance administrative charges. QDP allows us to cut those costs significantly, which means that we can sharply reduce our basic dental service fees and offer things like free basic checkups for kids and their parents. That helps us help the kids in the community and helps their parents save a
great deal of money on giving their kids the dental care they need. I feel really good about that,” said Barry.
For more information, visit QualityDentalPlan.com.
