What are the actual barriers keeping people in underserved areas from getting dental care?

Whether your understanding of access goes beyond 'there aren't enough dentists.'

Written by Victoria Young, DDS · NYU College of Dentistry '24 · Penn Dental Medicine

The trap

Reducing it to one cause. Access is a stack of independent barriers, and clearing only one changes almost nothing — that insight is what a strong answer demonstrates.

How to structure your answer

Name several distinct categories of barrier → explain the mechanism of each → note which are hardest to fix.

Financial: no adult dental benefit in many state Medicaid programs, low reimbursement, few dentists accepting it
Geographic: tens of millions in dental health professional shortage areas, long drives, no transit
Structural: no paid time off, no childcare, appointment hours that require missing work
Cultural and experiential: past painful or humiliating care, language, distrust, dental anxiety
Workforce: new graduates carrying large debt gravitating toward higher-income areas

A weak answer

What most people say

The biggest issue is that there just aren't enough dentists in those areas. A lot of rural counties don't have anyone practicing nearby, so people either drive a long way or go without entirely. Cost matters too, since plenty of people don't have any dental coverage. I think we need more dentists willing to go and practice there.

One cause with a second bolted on, and no mechanism underneath either of them.

A stronger answer

What lands

I ran the front desk at a community health center for two years, so I watched these stack. Money first: our state's adult Medicaid dental benefit covered emergency extractions and not much else, so a woman with a restorable molar lost it because that's what was payable. Then geography, shortage areas, ninety-minute drives, no bus. Then the one nobody counts, which is that our morning slots were the ones people missed, because you can't lose a shift or find childcare. Then fear, usually from being shamed at some earlier visit. Fix any single one and she still doesn't come.

Four distinct mechanisms seen firsthand, plus the point that clearing one changes nothing.

The first answer names a shortage. The second explains why a woman living across the street still doesn't come in.

These are illustrations, not scripts. An answer you memorize sounds memorized — the point is the shape and the specificity, in your own words and about your own life.

Reading it isn't the same as saying it.

Most people can explain a good answer and still fall apart saying one out loud. Admitted asks you all 100 questions in a faculty voice, records you, and scores your pace and filler words.

Try one interview free Get the guide