Max H. Schoen; Dental Care Innovator

Dr. Max H. Schoen, 72, a retired UCLA dentistry professor who was an innovator of prepaid dental care and an early advocate of dental care for the poor. A native of New York, Schoen was educated at City College of New York, UCLA and USC. After serving in the Army Air Corps dental unit during World War II, he had a dental practice in Los Angeles from 1946 to 1954. He then became a founding partner in a group practice that featured prepaid dental care. Schoen left that practice in 1973 to teach dentistry at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In 1976, he moved to the UCLA schools of dentistry and public health, where he taught until his retirement in 1987. Over the years, Schoen served as consultant on the design and evaluation of dental plans for several public and private agencies. In 1990, he received the John W. Knutson Distinguished Service Award from the oral health section of the American Public Health Assn. On Dec. 9 in Los Angeles of a heart attack.