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Your child's dental plan is separate from their health plan
Most families find this out in a waiting room. Florida Medicaid delivers children's dental through a separate prepaid dental plan — in 2026 the statewide options are DentaQuest and Liberty Dental. Your child has one whether or not you have ever used it.
The switch window closes quietly
You generally have 120 days after initial enrollment to change dental plans. After that it is annual open enrollment, or an approved for-cause reason. If the plan you were assigned has no dentist within reach who will treat a child with disabilities, that is worth raising as a network adequacy problem rather than accepting.
Why this matters more for our kids
Reflux, mouth breathing, dry mouth from anticholinergics, seizure medications that cause gum overgrowth, enamel defects from prematurity, sweetened suspensions four times a day. A tube-fed child still needs their teeth brushed — arguably more, because chewing no longer cleans anything.
Three questions before you book
Do you regularly treat children with disabilities? Will you do a desensitization visit where nothing happens? Are you privileged at a hospital or surgery center if my child eventually needs general anesthesia? A practice that answers yes to all three is worth driving past two closer ones for.
And if your child is going under anesthesia for anything else — an MRI, a scope, ear tubes — ask whether dental work can be combined into the same event. It spares your child an entire ordeal.