On Veterans Day November 11,1 Americans offer gifts and services to the brave men and women who served in the US armed forces. One of the ways we honor them is by dental professionals providing them with needed oral health-care services, often for free. This is because veterans are underserved when it comes to dental care.
The public may see veterans as those who served in one of the service branches of the US military. The Veterans Authority definition is someone released from military duty by any means besides dishonorable.2 Congress has a slightly different definition—a man or woman who served active military, naval, space, or air for a minimum time who was not dishonorably discharged. Congress also states that men and women serving in the National Guard or as reservists are not always given veteran status.
The 2022 census recorded 16.2 million veterans in the US, with a quarter of them over the age of 75.4 The problem becomes—while there are millions of veterans living in the US according to Congress—not all of them are defined as a veteran nor eligible for military benefits.
If they qualify, a veteran can receive free dental care at a Veteran Affairs (VA) clinic.5,6 However, the rating system for dental benefits is complex and involves screening for nine qualifying circumstances that warrant a veteran receiving free dental care. Figure 1 summarizes the benefits of the nine classes of dental benefits.6
Source: Those who serve our country are underserved by dentistry / RDH Magazine