Dear Colleagues,

Now is the time!

I’ve written to you about this before, but now it’s urgent.

A proposal to include dental benefits in Part B of Medicare is being considered this week in the U.S. House of Representatives.

This proposal would greatly impact you, your patients and your practice. It would put dental care in Medicare Part B, which is physician focused and does not take into consideration the differences between physician offices and dental offices. Specifically, Part B would require significant administrative, technical and programmatic requirements that would not best serve older patients seeking access to oral health care. Additionally, it is unclear how reimbursement rates for dental services would be determined. Without certainty from Congress on how reimbursement would be determined, the concern is that they would be inadequate.

The ADA has proposed an alternative approach to expand access to oral health care for seniors that adheres to the ADA’s policy, which was adopted at the House of Delegates in 2020. This alternative approach would not force dentists into the same Medicare program as physicians and would focus on low-income seniors.

You need to be heard! Please join your fellow dentists and contact your members of Congress to ask them to oppose the Part B dental benefit and instead support the ADA’s alternative.

You CAN make a difference. During the COVID-19 pandemic, over 160,000 dentists wrote to Congress, and this helped ensure that Congress passed laws that supported dentistry. We need you to take action now by contacting your members of Congress. For more information, please visit ADA.org/Medicare.

Sincerely,
Daniel J. Klemmedson, D.D.S., M.D.
ADA President

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