Texas Dentists Refusing Medicaid Patients

State questions diagnoses and refuses to pay, so dentists terminate care

DALLAS—Tens of thousands of Texas kids are getting fired—as patients—by their Medicaid dentists.

A boom in putting braces on poor children has now come to a screeching halt after a News 8 investigation and a change in state policy, and children from border to border are suffering the consequences.

Texas put braces on 80,000 Medicaid children in 2010, and at least 40,000 in 2011.

Now the state has realized it made a mistake, and has quit paying many clinics for treatment now underway (It usually takes about two years for a child's orthodontic treatment). Some of those dentists are telling Medicaid parents their children they won't be treated anymore. It's happening all over the state.