There are many areas of the world where one expects to find a shortage of dental services. Third world countries like Namibia and Bhutan come to mind–but rural Kansas does not. Nevertheless, that is the story in this article. The article details how rural residents of Kansas may actually suffer from sub-standard dental care because there is a lack of dentists out there.
Ninety-three Kansas counties face dental care provider shortages. Thirteen of those counties — mostly in western Kansas — have no dentist at all.
“Without access to a dentist, hundreds of thousands of Kansans are going without dental services, which affects their ability to work and go to school,” according to the Kansas Dental Project.
This is a real problem and one that likely has a multitude of contributing factors. However, I guarantee that part of the problem here is that it is so hard to get loans for dentists in this area. The risk of lending money to a dentist in this area would cause many banks to shy away from such a risky enterprise, despite the fact that it’s badly needed in the area. Dentist loans are not easy to come by–if they were there might be better dental care in western Kansas.