Dental health: children and young adults will be entitled to a free annual check-up

“If we manage to do this every year until the age of 24, we will have achieved a turning point: that’s a whole generation whose dental capital will be preserved“, assured AFP Marguerite Cazeneuve, deputy director of Health Insurance. “Promoting dental health from an early age is a game-changer.”.

Currently, 3-24 year olds can already have a free annual check-up every three years, a measure which benefits around two million patients per year according to Health Insurance.

This consultation includes an oral examination and an awareness-raising interview with the dentist. Reimbursement also includes any treatment that may prove necessary.

In the years following the establishment of these free consultations, introduced in 2006, the rate of young people suffering from cavities has declined, a trend that health authorities want to further accentuate to reach a “cavity-free generation”.

It is with this goal that they intend to accelerate the frequency of these free assessments, which will be offered each year to 3-24 year olds from 2025.

Health Insurance also plans to carry out more awareness-raising activities in schools and to seek to better communicate with populations “furthest from dental care”, for example in priority educational establishments in order to reach the most modest.

These measures are announced even though Health Insurance lowered the reimbursement rate for dental care last year, sending a larger share to mutual insurance companies which threatened an increase in their prices.

Ms. Cazeneuve, however, downplayed the idea that Health Insurance would use the savings made in this area to finance dental prevention actions for the youngest.

“These are two very different subjects, even if we can explain that the objective is to invest directly in prevention“, she explained.