Blog

Patrick Smith, DMD, MPH, recalls the experience like it was yesterday.

This week, CareQuest Institute for Oral Health released the Medicaid Adult Dental Coverage Checker in partnership with the American Dental Association (ADA) Health Policy Institute, the Center for Health Care Strategies, Inc., and the National Academy for State Health Policy.  The Checker provides a snapshot of a state’s Medicaid adult dental benefits, allowing individuals to better understand the details of their state’s offerings and identify potential areas for improvement.

By Caroline McLeod, RDH, MS, and Marybeth Shaffer, DMD

Danica Loring, EFDA, CDA, works as a dental practice manager at Penobscot Community Health Care (PCHC) Dental Center, a nonprofit in Maine. She helps PCHC achieve its mission of providing comprehensive, integrated primary health care services to improve the health and well-being of patients in the Maine community. Danica’s 15-year career as a dental assistant helped hone her passion for direct patient care. In her new role, she oversees PCHC’s Dental Assisting Training Program, which provides on-the-job training to new dental assistants.

By Stacey Auger, Policy Consultant, CareQuest Institute

What is the oral health industry’s role and responsibility in addressing racism in our country? “In contrast to other disciplines (public health and medicine for example), dentistry as a discipline has been relatively quiet in the space of anti-racism,” said Eleanor Fleming, PhD, DDS, MPH, FICD, assistant dean for equity, diversity, and inclusion at the University of Maryland School of Dentistry. “This special issue in many respects fills a void and offers a strategic path forward for dental public health using the lens of anti-racism.”

What adjectives would you use to describe the oral health system? Traditional? Effective? Reliable? One adjective that often gets left out of the conversation: innovative. “There is a lack of innovation in oral health in a couple of ways,” says Kirill Zaydenman, MS, vice president of innovation at our for-profit subsidiary CareQuest Innovation Partners. “One is that dentistry has not kept pace with change in other industries that have been undergoing digital transformation. The other is within public health — it’s a hugely underserved market.”

CareQuest Institute’s grantmaking efforts focus on five cross-cutting strategies: health and racial equity, social determinants of health, community-centered measurement, learning and capacity building, and innovation in oral health. Why those five areas?

By Kelly Schroeder, RDH, MS Like many of you, becoming a health care professional, specifically a dental hygienist, was a dream job for me. The small-town practice I worked for really cared about their employees, patients, and the community. For many years as a clinical dental hygienist, I felt I had found my purpose. I loved my job and my patients, but like every good love story, there was a dark side.

As we continue to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, the benefits of telehealth to connect patients with health care providers have become clear. Whether it’s telemedicine, teletherapy, or teledermatology, telehealth is here to stay. And that includes teledentistry, which can increase access to oral health care and decrease costs — now and beyond the pandemic.