Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Dentistry Volume 2012, Article ID 348237, 7 pages doi:10.1155/2012/348237 Review Article Early Childhood Caries and the Impact of Current U.S. Medicaid Program: An Overview Bussma Ahmed Bugis1, 2 1 Division of Management, Policy and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA 2 Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission to the U.S., Ministry of Higher Education in Saudi Arabia, Riyadh 11153, Saudi Arabia Correspondence should be addressed to Bussma Ahmed Bugis, bussma31311@yahoo.com Received 17 November 2011; Accepted 25 December 2011 Academic Editor: Ali I. Abdalla Copyright © 2012 Bussma Ahmed Bugis. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Pediatric dental caries is the most common chronic disease among children. Above 40% of the U.S. children aged 2–11 years have dental caries; more than 50% of them come from low-income families. Under dental services of the Medicaid program, children enrolled in Medicaid must receive preventive dental services. However, only 1/5 of them utilize preventive dental services. The purpose of this overview is to measure the impact of Medicaid dental beneﬁts on reducing oral health disparities among Medicaid- eligible children. This paper explains the importance of preventive dental care, children at high risk of dental caries, Medicaid dental beneﬁts, utilization of dental preventive services by Medicaid-eligible children, dental utilization inﬂuencing factors, and outcome evaluation of Medicaid in preventing dental caries among children. In conclusion, despite the recent increase of children enrolled in Medicaid, utilizing preventive dental care is still a real challenge that faces Medicaid. 1. Introduction Dental caries is found to be the most common chronic dis- ease among children [1]. Oral health disparities among child- ren still exist in the United States. According to Oral Health in America: A report of the Surgeon General, children from minorities who come from low-income families are at higher risk of having untreated dental caries and poorer access to dental services than their peers from majority and high- income families [2]. In general, above 40% of the U.S. children aged 2–11 years have dental caries, and more than 50% of them come from families with income less than 200% of the federal poverty level [3]. When predicting the development of oral diseases, history of having dental caries is the most predicting factor of future caries [4]. Invasive dental treatments can be reduced among children at high risk with proper preventive dental care (PDC). Savage and colleagues [5] found that preschool-aged children receive the highest level of PDC among other ages and the early they receive PDC, the more likely they utilize PDC regularly and the fewer costs related to dental treatments. Receiving preventive dental services is mandated beneﬁt for children enrolled in Medicaid as a part of the early and periodic screening, diagnostic and treatment (EPSDT) be- neﬁt under dental services of Title XIX of the Social Security Act, the Medicaid program [6]. However, not all Medicaid- insured children have an equal access to PDC. In fact, only 1 child out of 5 Medicaid-eligible children receives PDC, as reported by the Oﬃce of Inspector General [7]. Although Medicaid provides comprehensive dental beneﬁts for eligible children and prohibits copayments for preventive care, multiple barriers aﬀect the utilization of PDC both within dental delivery services and Medicaid-eligible families. The purpose of this paper is to measure the impact of Medicaid dental beneﬁts in increasing the awareness of pre- ventive dental services and decreasing oral health disparities among Medicaid-eligible children. In addition, the utiliza- tion of PDC along with inﬂuencing factors will be explained brieﬂy. Outcome evaluation of Medicaid in eliminating oral health disparities among the U.S. children will also be assessed. Finally, recommendations and suggestions will be provided.