Flap's Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: June 4, 2012

They might be called bounty hunters.

They're dressed as dental professionals, but they are recruiters whose job is to find Medicaid-eligible children for dentists to work on.

In 2010, Medicaid paid $1.6 billion for dental work on children, more than $500 per child.

The recruiter's job is to entice parents to take their children to the office of a certain dentist. They often give free gifts to parents to seal the bargain.

Some dentists, in turn, compensate the recruiters by giving them a bonus for each child they bring in to the office.

All of it is ultimately funded by taxpayers' money.

On a recent Friday afternoon on John West Road in East Dallas, Juanita Bonner was walking along a sidewalk after picking up her children from the school bus. With her kids by her side, she was stopped by a van from Access Dental.

"Today he offered me a free pizza dinner," Bonner said. It was not a rare occurrence. It happens every day, she said. "Not just Access... it's everybody."

The freebies dispensed in the battle for patients are diverse: Pizza dinners, manicures, pedicures, and the most prized of all: Walmart gift cards.

"Can you imagine getting a $20 gift card just to bring your kid to the dentist?" asked grandmother Linda Passow.

Her daughter, Misty Kinney, has three children. Mother and daughter were fueling their car at a Mesquite shopping center when they said they were approached by a man who appeared to be wearing dental scrubs.

Kinney recalled what he told her: "'Each child we get in [to the office]" we give out a $20 gift card.'"

Kinney got an appointment card from the recruiter and set up a time for Misty's son to visit the AmeriSmiles clinic . Then, mother and daughter called News 8.

Crystal Ann Baker isn't a dentist, but she fills cavities, pulls teeth and even performs children's root canals.

Baker, who treats low-income patients in St. Paul, Minn., is among the nation's first dental therapists ? an innovative and controversial health position intended to fill socioeconomic and geographic gaps in dental care.

With nearly 17 million children nationwide lacking dental care and health reform expected to increase demand, California and other states are exploring similar models to expand the dental workforce, setting the stage for a series of battles with dentist organizations that warn that patient safety is at stake.

The American Dental Assn. argues that dental therapists lack the training and education needed to perform irreversible surgical procedures and to identify patients' other medical problems.

The California Academy of General Dentistry argues that high school graduates with a few years of training could end up performing delicate procedures with permanent consequences. "Imagine how you would feel if your children were being taken care of by these people," said Sun Costigan, president of the organization.

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