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More than 65 million people nationwide count on Medicare for their health care, including senior citizens once they turn 65 and many adults with disabilities. However, this health program doesn’t include comprehensive dental care, a gap that pushes oral health care out of reach. This gap is especially harmful for seniors who live on limited incomes, in rural communities, or who face systemic racial inequities. Simply put, it worsens their overall health and well-being.

Amanpreet Kaur first encountered the concept of health literacy — defined as the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions — as a young college graduate. Although she had never heard the term before, it instantly made sense to her.

By the numbers, OPEN’s Virtual Hill Day was a great success. There were more than 100 oral health advocates and Oral Health Progress and Equity Network (OPEN) members representing 37 states. Congressional staff from 59 Senate offices and 43 House offices also attended. They had one goal, together, of creating an oral health care system that is equitable, accessible, and affordable. But the real success, the change, came after the event in mid-September, with action from two senators just a month later.

Early on in his 23-year tenure with the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities (CTD), Executive Director Dennis Borel noticed that some of his colleagues and people he socialized with who had disabilities had problems with their oral health. “I used to see a lot of my folks with missing teeth, sometimes no teeth, broken teeth, stained, bad shape,” Borel said.

On September 15, 2022, the American Medical Association (AMA) voted to approve a new procedure code for the application of silver diamine fluoride (SDF) by medical professionals to arrest cavities. The addition of this code is a milestone in medical-dental integration and a step forward for oral health equity, providing access to this valuable treatment to millions of Americans who don’t see the dentist every year.

By Stacey Auger, MPH, policy consultant, CareQuest Institute

Throughout her career, Gretchen Henson, DDS, has provided personalized prevention recommendations for patients, knowing that they all have different backgrounds and lifestyles. “I spend so much of my appointment trying to figure out what their home life looks like, so we can tailor a plan for them,” Henson says.

Early childhood caries remains the most common, preventable infectious disease among children in the United States. Preventing them is not always easy, though.

Giving back to the community is in Dr. Lauren Rush’s DNA.

Many of the patients Lauren Rush, DDS, sees at MyCare Health Center in Michigan have to choose between taking care of their own personal health or putting food on the table for their family. That’s because at MyCare Health Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), most patients are enrolled in Medicaid. That means they have issues accessing oral health care, whether it’s due to finding reliable transportation, getting childcare so they can go to their appointment, or getting time off work.