Dental Health Access Project

While hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents lack medical insurance, 2.3 million lack dental insurance. Poor oral health can lead to significant health problems, including increased severity of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, complications of immune disorders and cancers, and increased incidence of premature and low-birth-weight babies. On a day-to-day basis, the pain caused by tooth decay can interfere with eating, speaking, learning, and working. Nationally, more than 51 million school-hours and 164 million work-hours are lost each year due to dental-related illnesses.

Improving access to oral health care for children and adults who lack dental insurance has been a longtime priority for HLA. HLA’s Dental Health Access Project works to improve access to dental care for low and middle-income adults and children. In the past year, HLA has devoted its resources to monitoring the implementation of the remediation plan for its class action lawsuit, Health Care For All (HCFA) v. Romney. Although this lawsuit specifically pertained to access to dental care for children receiving MassHealth, the remediation plan will lead to increased access to dental care for all MassHealth recipients.

As a result of HLA’s legal and advocacy efforts in this lawsuit, the Commonwealth has hired a Third Party Administrator for the MassHealth dental program, streamlined the provider credentialing process, increased provider reimbursement rates, removed prior authorization requirements for many children’s services, and authorized the creation of a school-based oral health pilot program. All of these improvements will have a dramatic and positive impact on the state of dental health care access in the Commonwealth.

In the coming year, HLA will continue to work to ensure implementation of the Court’s judgment in HCFA v. Romney. More than 40% of children on MassHealth are now seeing a dentist, thanks to HLA’s advocacy efforts and the lawsuit’s remediation plan. While this is an improvement over the past, it is still a far cry from the 75% of children who are privately insured receiving dental care. Through our Dental Health Access Project, HLA will continue to strive towards closing this gap.