Gwangju City Selected for Pilot Project of Children's Dental Primary Care under Health Insurance

Dental Treatment Fee Support for Over 14,000 4th Grade Elementary Students Over 3 Years

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 12th that it has been finally selected for the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s “2021 Pediatric Dental Primary Care Health Insurance Pilot Project.”

The project targets approximately 14,400 children in the 4th grade of elementary school this year, who will receive regular management at dental clinics from the first half of the year until they graduate from elementary school, for a total of three years.

Until now, oral services were mainly treatment-focused, provided when teeth were in pain and children visited dental clinics. However, under this pilot project, children will receive oral health check-ups, oral health education, tooth surface cleaning, fluoride application, and other preventive oral care services every six months at contracted dental clinics.

The project is fully funded by health insurance, with a total of 3 billion KRW invested over three years at 1 billion KRW per year. Each eligible child will receive support of about 38,300 KRW per visit (including consultation fees), so when using the pediatric dental primary care service, they only need to pay about 7,500 KRW out of pocket.

The “Pediatric Dental Primary Care Health Insurance Pilot Project” is a government initiative to promote basic child health as part of realizing an innovative inclusive nation, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare invited applications from 12 cities and provinces.

Gwangju City applied for the project after close consultations with autonomous districts, the education office, and the dental association to improve the current situation where there is a significant disparity in oral health according to income level, a high rate of dental treatment among children, but a low rate of dental visits for preventive purposes, and was finally selected.

The city plans to sign a memorandum of understanding with the education office and the dental association and thoroughly prepare by explaining the pilot project to parents.

Park Hyang, Director of the Welfare and Health Bureau of the city, said, “The pediatric dental primary care pilot project will lay the foundation for lifelong oral health practices for our precious children,” and added, “We will do our best to successfully implement the project so that it can serve as a nationwide exemplary case along with improving the health of our children.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.