G-2102-16682

Virginia Health Catalyst (VHC) is the state oral health coalition of Virginia that works to ensure all Virginian’s have equitable access to comprehensive health care that includes oral health through specific strategies focused on public health, policy, public awareness, and clinic/community care. VHC has been a long-time partner of DQP and has implemented projects with our A&E Team, the IPP Team, and maintains an ongoing relationship with the Grants Team. Historically, their work has produced some major milestones in Virginia including the expansion of Medicaid and, in 2020, the passage of legislation and the state budget that includes an adult dental benefit which is scheduled to roll out in July of 2021. Additionally, VHC has played an important partner due to proximity in advocating for federal oral health policy such as expanding FMAP for Medicaid.

This proposal falls under the Advancing Equity program with the Spread Learning Models to the Broader Safety Net initiative and is capitalizing on a critical window of opportunity right now related to the upcoming launch of the state's Medicaid adult dental benefit. The two primary areas of focus for this proposal are to strategically optimize the implementation of the benefit and, in alignment with that implementation, position the Virginia safety net for moving towards oral health value-based care (OHVBC). To do this, VHC will ensure that the Medicaid dental provider network is adequately prepared to treat new enrollees and, through a staged roll out, provide tools, resources, and education to both providers and patients as they move through pre-implementation, implementation, and post implementation. Additionally, VHC will leverage their connection with the dental safety net to lead an oral health value-based care readiness assessment that is designed off of the DQP readiness assessment tool. The findings of the assessment will be published and point to a list of recommendations for advancing OHVBC in Virginia.

The original request for funding was $175,670, and the recommendation from the review committee is to fund at $140,000, which will go towards staff time and supplies, as well as stipends for safety net clinics to allow them to engage in the readiness assessment. The reduction is based on aligning the budget with the scope of work as well as effectively managing the grantmaking budget to ensure the maximizing of our investments in 2021.