G-2411-22218

Established in 2008, the mission of the Arkansas Oral Health Coalition (AOHC) is to promote sound oral health policy, increase awareness of oral health issues, and provide oral health education to the citizens of Arkansas. They are a statewide voluntary effort to bring together individuals and organizations who have a shared goal of improving oral health in their state. While the coalition has a strong membership and has adopted a State Oral Health Plan that serves as a strategic plan, they have been unable to develop momentum in championing oral health initiatives due to lack of paid staff. They are also the only statewide organization that is positioned to advocate policy change for at-risk populations, including minorities, individuals with disabilities, rural populations, women of childbearing age, and individuals receiving Medicaid/ALICE.

The oral health care landscape in Arkansas is in a state of flux: approximately 779,540 Arkansans are enrolled in Medicaid. The state’s Medicaid dental program recently transitioned from a managed care model to fee-for-service. Dental providers who were credentialed with Medicaid have indicated they may leave the program due to the potential for lengthy waits for prior authorizations and delays in an already low fee reimbursement schedule. In addition, the state’s children’s hospital which used to provide sedation dentistry to adults with severe disabilities has changed its care model to only providing care to children 11 and younger, leaving several hundred patients without a dental home. The dental provider workforce serving rural areas of the state is also aging and these aging providers are not finding replacements to carry on their community practice. This is increasing the areas of the state that are experiencing dental provider shortages and lengthy travels to oral health care. Lastly, there is a growing public concern about the safety of community water fluoridation. The AOHC needs an executive director to lead advocacy efforts that can help address the issues described above, and as the state’s only oral health coalition there is not an entity more appropriately suited to do so.

The executive director will also build a Lived Experience Advisory Group to define and quantify those factors that contribute to disproportionate access to or utilization of oral health care. AOHC will collect these stories from underserved populations, quantify the variety and types of barriers that exist, and develop strategies that can be used by the provider community and individuals to improve access to care.

The budget for this proposal is $100,000 which represents 5% of SOA’s overall budget. Funding will support staff time, administrative fees, and indirect costs.