Free dental for Aussie kids: How to get government-funded dentistry

Aussie families are missing out on free dental care, as one dentist said she had to remove a five-year-old’s 18 teeth. See if you are eligible for the benefits.

Exclusive: Two in three families are missing out on $1000 worth of free dental care for their children because they don’t even know they are eligible for the program.

As dentists report cases of chronic tooth decay in young children, there are calls for Family Tax Benefits to be withdrawn from families who fail to get their kids a dental check at two and four years of age.

The Child Dental Benefits Scheme has been operating for six years but a government inquiry found it was so poorly advertised families didn’t know about it even though cost is the main reason kids don’t see a dentist.

The inquiry called for the scheme to be opened to one-year-olds (currently it applies to children aged two to 17) and said it should be expanded to cover dental treatment in hospital.

NSW Australian Dental Association president Dr Kathleen Matthews – who recently removed 18 of the 20 teeth in a five-year-old’s mouth – is calling for more to be done to get parents using the scheme.

Dr Kathleen Matthews says child dental benefits need to be expanded. Picture: Narrative Post/Matthias Engesser

While this was an extreme case she said it was normal for her to remove somewhere between four to eight teeth from a child’s mouth.

“We often see children here that have multiple teeth that are badly affected by decay, and the only solution for that is to take them into hospital and give them a general anaesthetic, it breaks my heart,” Dr Matthews said.

More than three million Australian children whose parents receive the Family Tax Benefit are eligible for $1000 worth of free dental care every two years but Department of Health reports that only 39.7 per cent take advantage of the scheme.

The government writes to families once a year to remind them of the scheme but a government review found “the notification letters were not readily understandable, not attention grabbing, and did not clearly highlight the benefit available”

More than 72,000 people were hospitalised in 2017-18 for dental conditions that could have been prevented with earlier treatment.

More than three million Australian children whose parents receive the Family Tax Benefit are eligible for $1000 worth of free dental care every two years.

The review called for the scheme to be opened to one-year-olds to encourage families to start going to the dentist early and learn how to care for their child’s teeth from the outset.

It also wants the scheme to cover hospitalisation costs after the federal government stopped paying the states for providing dental care in hospital under a national partnership agreement.

Dr Matthews said maybe the program should encourage dentists to “get out of the dental office and doing something different, like going to schools”, or pay for a fluoride varnish program to help prevent decay.

Currently the government holds back the Family Tax Benefit payments from families who do not vaccinate their children and Dr Matthews said it was worth considering whether a similar model could apply to dental care.

There could be a check when the child was 18 months and another at the age of four, she said

Ayisha, Anisa and Amina Adjis access the dental scheme. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Sarah Sukarna said the Child Dental Benefits Scheme saved her 14-year-old daughter Ayisha’s life when it paid for a $700 bill for emergency root canal treatment for a condition that threatened her breathing.

“The dentists was there for two hours, saving my daughter’s life because the swelling was going down to her neck, and he would drain it and it would swell with drain and then fall off again,” Ms Sukarna said.

“To have that money there was like lifesaver because I don’t have $700,” the 34-year-old business analyst said.

Proportion of eligible families accessing Child Dental Benefits Scheme

NSW: 37.2 per cent

VIC: 40.9 per cent

QLD: 36.2 per cent

SA: 42.5 per cent

WA: 19.9 per cent

TAS: 42 per cent

NT: 19.1 per cent

ACT: 26.5 per cent

Source: 2019 Report on the Fourth Review of the Dental Benefits Act 2008

Originally published as Free dental for Aussie kids: How to get government-funded dentistry