On April 8-9, 2024, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) hosted the 2024 Quality Conference. The conference theme was "Resilient and Ready Together: Creating an Optimal Environment for Quality Healthcare for Individuals, Families, and Communities." There were four sessions focused on oral health, including:

• Welcome Remarks from the CMS Chief Dental Officer;
• Oral Health Quality Improvement in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP);
• Advancing Oral Health Equity Through Quality Improvement Measures; and,
• Expanding Access to Quality and Affordable Oral Health and Behavioral Healthcare.

The sessions covered topics such as CMS initiatives to improve oral health access and quality, research on dental trends during the COVID-19 pandemic, reducing emergency department (ED) visits for untreated oral health conditions, and enhancing access to care for underserved communities, including people with substance use disorder (SUD). Dr. Natalia Chalmers, the CMS Chief Dental Officer, explained that last year, CMS launched several multi-year initiatives focused on oral health. The initiatives are focused on emphasizing preventative, minimally invasive, and timely care; enhancing managed care plans engagement and accountability; and improving quality measures and data analytics to track the initiatives’ progress. Dr. Chalmers also highlighted recent CMS regulatory changes that will improve access to dental care, including changes to the 2025 Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters (NBPP) that allows state Marketplace plans to cover adult dental services.  

Recordings and presentations are available here.

Impact on General Dentistry: Increased access to high quality dental services is crucial to promoting overall health and well-being and reduce expensive and avoidable ED visits for untreated oral health conditions. AGD will continue monitoring the progress of the oral health initiatives as well as any actions CMS takes to increase access to oral health services.