The Children’s National Oral Health Project, funded in part by the Salazar Penalty Escrow Account, Issues Final Report Concerning Access to Children’s Dental Care in Wards 7 and 8 in DC

In January 2021, the Salazar Penalty Escrow Account provided funding to Children’s National for the Children’s National Oral Health Project to address barriers to pediatric dental care among Medicaid eligible children in Wards 7 and 8 in the District of Columbia. The project’s goal was to improve communication between a child’s primary pediatric center and dental home by referring children at well-child visits without a dental home to an on-location person trained as a Community Dental Health Coordinator (CDHC) to coordinate care and make appointments with a dental provider in the community as part of the well-child physician visit.

The project, which began in May 2021 and concluded in July 2023, took place at the ARC and Anacostia locations of Children’s National. In January 2025, Children’s National issued a Final Report, concluding that “Despite CDHC efforts, it was not sufficient to increase access to oral health care because of the capacity of the system.” We understand the authors to be referring to the lack of capacity of the system to provide dental health services to children on DC Medicaid.

While the project did not succeed in its goal of increasing dental participation by children eligible for Medicaid in Wards 7 and 8, the project resulted in many findings and recommendations to increase dental care access to this underserved community. The Report describes lessons learned during the project, including that parents prefer to have their pediatric primary care and dental care in the same location and that they continue to struggle to be offered timely appointment times at dental offices at accessible hours, close to their neighborhood, and in a safe location.

As part of the project, a focus group involving both providers and caregivers was conducted to determine the barriers to children’s dental health care. The focus group found that parents/caregivers find the lack of local dental providers, lack of transportation, and restrictions in appointments for multiple children were barriers to accessing care. These and other findings are available in the Preventive Oral Health Care Access  Report.