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San Benito County
Overview of Findings
Low income families in San Benito County have difficulty finding dental providers who accept Medi-Cal and are often referred to providers in surrounding Santa Clara or Monterey counties. In addition to a lack of providers willing to accept patients with public insurance, there is also a lack of pediatric dentists in the county. Children in need of pediatric dental care are referred to the San Benito Health Foundation; however, if a pediatric dentist is unable to see a patient, they are referred to the Children’s Miracle Network in Salinas.
The Head Start program of San Benito/Santa Clara requires a dental exam for children entering the program. A key informant stated that families don’t have problems getting initial dental exams for children, but follow-up treatments are problematic due to the lack of providers who accept Medi-Cal, and parents who often don’t understand the importance of dental health.
Although Head Start doesn’t provide dental services, they serve as a resource to families in need of dental care. One of the challenging tasks of Head Start is to find providers who accept Head Start children. With the recent cuts to Medi-Cal reimbursements, dental providers will be less willing to accept patients who have Medi-Cal and Healthy Families coverage. More cuts will mean fewer providers for low-income children.
Data
The following links lead to visual representations of the data collected in the surveys for this county. Maps in the 'slideshow' have accompanying text that helps explain what is visually taking place as well as comparing the results of this county's maps to the results for the rest of the region. The PDF maps have no explanation text and are only the visual image.
View Map Slideshow
Download Map PDFs:
- 2007 Hispanic % with projected dental practices currently serving DentiCal patients
- 2007 Population Density with projected dental practices currently serving DentiCal patients