On Friday, the kids had dental appointments set up. It was Grace's Easter Break, so I thought I would take the kids in together at the same time. I made it a point to make sure I got there about 15 minutes early to fill out the new patient paperwork I knew I would have to fill out. They were both new patients because Grace had previously gone to a different dentist who no longer takes her insurance, and Nate had never been to the dentist at all. Well that 15 minutes wasn't nearly enough time to fill out the 45 pages of paper work I had to fill out. For each kid. While I was still completing the paperwork, one of the assistants came in to get the kids to take them for xrays, and then the dentist was going to come in to the little office room I was in to go over the kids' medical histories with me. After that was done, I went over to the room where the kids were, and I see Nate sitting in the chair with the saddest, yet cutest little sad face and his bottom lip was quivering! It was close to nap time, and that combined with a new place, and neither Grace nor I was with him (she was getting some panoramic xrays done), he was scared and sad. He did better when I was there with him, but he kept telling me how he wanted to go home. Apparently, while I was out of the room talking to the dentist, he did really well with listening to the assistant while she was getting his xrays. He also did really well with his cleaning and every thing. Grace was done first, but she had to go get her molars sealed, but Nate was only a few minutes behind her. After he was done, we went and waited where she was waiting, and ended up waiting for what seemed like FOR-EV-ER! The dentist has to check the sealant before she can go and I guess he was tied up with patients.
Overall, the kids' teeth are good. No cavitites for either one. Grace has a crossbite and I was given a referral for her to go see the Orthodontist. Her last dentist had mentioned that she would get some sort of appliance to put into her mouth, but we would have to wait until her molars were fully grown in before we could go. Nate apparently has had some trauma to his two front teeth (uppers). The root is either damaged or stopped growing or something, and the dentist showed me on the xrays how the teeth next to those two have these long roots, and the middle ones do not. I think he said something about watching for abcesses or something (he had a very thick accent) but basically said that he would check him again in 6 months and if the teeth are causing or will cause damage to the permanent teeth behind them, he will have to extract those two teeth. Nate also has a part of skin inside his mouth, called frenulum labii superioris, that grew too far and is inbetween his two top teeth, causing a slight gap. This is the skin that you have between your lip and your gums (top and bottom have it but the bottom is called frenulum labii inferioris, and frenulum linguae, which is the skin that attaches to the underside of your tongue to the bottom of your mouth). I brought this up to the dentist myself as I had known about this problem for years and wondered what we could do about it. For now, nothing is done about it. When he is about 6 or 7 and those permanent top teeth are in, if the frenulum is still causing a gap, it can be surgically corrected. The dentist did mention that Nate would need braces. I don't really know much about teeth, but if his permanent teeth grow in just like his baby teeth did, then yes, he will most definitely need braces. Poor boy.
I'm slighty frustrated because it was VERY hard to find a dentist that took the kids' insurance. Grace is part of the State of Florida program called Florida Healthy Kids. Its a program to ensure that no matter what the income is that children in Florida get on some type of insurance. Now, if you make too much money, I believe you just pay the total premium which is like $110 or $120. However, you can pay as little as $15-20 per month. Luckily, we only pay $15. Nate is part of the State Medicaid system, but since we're not completely poor (just slightly, lol) and Nate is not an infant, he is on a sister program called Medikids. Now, its actually really confusing because Medicaid, Medikids, and Healthy Kids are all part of the same system, but they're seperate (see I told you it was confusing!). Anyway, hardly any dentists accept Medicaid, so I basically had to settle for a dentist, which I did not want to do. I am grateful for the insurance, just a little frustrated. To add to that frustration, the dentist's office gave me a referral paper for the orthodontist and told me all I had to do was call the insurance company and find out which orthodontists they cover and bring the referral to them. I called the insurance company and they told me the dentist's office needs to send them the referral themselves along with the xrays and it has to me medically necessary, like, and I quote, "if the child can't eat or can't speak." Um, then there's NO way they are going to cover this thing. But I will call the dentist's office on Monday and let them know what I need them to do and we'll see what happens.
Man, I can't wait until I am a nurse and I can get our family on some good health care coverage.
