In this file photo from 2010, a young patient listens to a CD on headphones while Dr. Robert Jacobs does a final check on his teeth.

Patients would often drive for hours to be seen by Dr. Bud Jacobs.

For much of his career as a pediatric dentist, Jacobs was one of a select few in northeast Kansas who would treat Medicaid patients, said Dr. Mark Edwards, a longtime friend and colleague.

Although the system has seen some changes in recent years, historically speaking, treating a patient on Medicaid meant more paperwork and less money for dentists, Edwards explained.

But Jacobs continued on undeterred, offering medical care to those who might otherwise receive none, Edwards said.

In this file photo from 2010, a young patient listens to a CD on headphones while Dr. Robert Jacobs does a final check on his teeth.

“He’s a great role model for us. For any dentist,” Edwards said. “He took Medicaid patients and probably many, many, many kids and never got paid, but he delivered the appropriate and ethical treatment, no matter what. He sacrificed a lot of things just to get kids treated.”

While Jacobs sold his practice — Robert W. Jacobs DDS, PA — in 2012, he continued working in the operating room at Lawrence Memorial Hospital until this fall. Now, after more than 40 years, he’s officially fully retired.

An Oklahoma native, Jacobs always worked with children when he was growing up, and when he began to take an interest in dentistry, leaning toward the pediatric side came naturally to him.

“I’d always worked at the swimming pool and summer camps, and I had been around kids a lot,” he said. “And when I got into dental school, I don’t know if I knew how to handle kids or if they were good for me, but I found it more interesting to work with them than the adults.”

Jacobs graduated from Oklahoma University, where he met his wife, Sheryl, and then continued on to dental school at the University of Missouri-Kansas City where he graduated in the early 1970s.

“At that point, the Vietnam War was going on,” he said. “So I joined the Air Force as a dental officer.”

In 1973, Jacobs left the Air Force and began his residency at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., where he learned how to properly handle Medicaid patients, he said.

“When I started out, still in residency, I had a nighttime practice two nights a week and all day on Saturday, the office I went into took Medicaid, so I learned from the get go how to do the paperwork, which was really important,” he said. “So in June of 1975, when I started my private practice, I said, ‘We’re going to keep doing this.'”

“We didn’t discriminate between what kind of insurance anybody had,” he added. “We just treated everybody the same.”

At that time, too, Jacobs was the only pediatric dentist in Lawrence, he said, so there was no shortage of patients.

“My practice was busy from the get go,” he said.

Keeping that forward momentum going for more than four decades should be considered a significant achievement, said Dr. John Hay, another of Jacobs’ longtime friends and former colleagues.

The political atmosphere and work involved with Medicaid often drove other dentists to the point where they would no longer accept new patients on the program, or they would refer them to different practices, Hay said.

“There was a period of time when the system was so frustratingly broken that people said, ‘I’m not doing this anymore,'” Hay explained.

All the same, Jacobs kept his resolve.

“I’ve referred to him as Saint Bud for a long time,” Hay said. “He’s incredibly giving to the most vulnerable people.”

Because many dentists were not accepting Medicaid patients and Jacobs was, their referrals were sent his way, Edwards said. Not only was Jacobs treating children from Lawrence, he was treating children from all over Northeast Kansas.

Over the years, Jacobs’ business grew and so did the number of patients he treated on Medicaid.

“When I started out, probably 30 percent of my patient population was covered by Medicaid,” he said. “When I finished in 2012, it was probably around 75 or 80 percent.”

And though many dentists might have considered those percentages a burden, Jacobs never looked at it that way, Hay said. Jacobs’ professional passion transcended any desire for money or publicity.

“He always kept love in his heart for what he was doing, and he didn’t let the politics that be influence him negatively,” Hay said. “He’s done a tremendous amount of good for the kids, and he’s probably one of the most professionally generous people I’ve come across.”