	{"id":111069,"date":"2025-11-05T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/lismoretimes\/?p=111069"},"modified":"2025-10-29T20:28:40","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T09:28:40","slug":"healthy-smiles-start-early-for-regional-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/lismoretimes\/news\/healthy-smiles-start-early-for-regional-kids\/","title":{"rendered":"Healthy smiles start early for regional kids"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NSW Health is urging families in regional and rural areas to make the most of the Child Dental Benefits Schedule, which offers up to $1,132 in dental care per child over two years.<\/p>\n<p>The national program supports children aged 0 to 17 who have a Medicare card and are part of a family receiving Family Tax Benefit Part A, or who receive an Australian Government payment.<\/p>\n<p>Benefits can be used at most private dentists, public dental clinics, NSW Health school-based dental services and some Aboriginal community health organisations.<\/p>\n<p>NSW Health said regular check-ups are key to a child&#8217;s wellbeing, and public dental clinics remain free for those not eligible or who have used their full benefit.<\/p>\n<p>Parents and guardians can visit <a href=\"http:\/\/health.nsw.gov.au\/cdbs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">health.nsw.gov.au\/cdbs<\/a> to check eligibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NSW Health is urging families in regional and rural areas to make the most of the Child Dental Benefits Schedule, which offers up to $1,132 in dental care per child over two years. The national program supports children aged 0 to 17 who have a Medicare card and are part of a family receiving Family [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/lismoretimes\/news\/healthy-smiles-start-early-for-regional-kids\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":108506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-111069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Healthy smiles start early for regional kids - Lismore Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"NSW Health urges families to use the Child Dental Benefits Schedule\u2014up to $1,132 for kids\u2019 dental care to keep healthy smiles early.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/lismoretimes\/news\/healthy-smiles-start-early-for-regional-kids\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Healthy smiles start early for regional kids - 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