MSDA

We had a very busy week, so there are a number of updates on our key bills to provide today.

On Thursday evening, the House Health and Government Operations (HGO) Committee cleared our Expanded Functions Dental Assistants bill (HB 968) after the Health Occupations and Long-Term Care Subcommittee passed the bill with amendments that we had agreed to through numerous conversations with dental hygienists, the Dental Assisting National Board, and anesthesiologists. We reluctantly agreed to allow intraoral photography. However, we required that supervision be by a Maryland dentist who reviews the photography and authorizes the treatment plan.

The HGO Committee also passed the State Board of Dental Examiners, Membership, Training, Disciplinary Processes (HB 969) in the same fashion as passed by the Senate Finance Committee. This means that the changes to the nomination process and composition of the Board were removed, but the rest of the bill on training, timeliness of decisions, and summary suspensions all remain the same.

Lastly, both the Senate Finance Committee and the House HGO Public Health Subcommittee cleared a version of the Adult Dental Medicaid bill (HB 6). The bill is smaller in scope by taking out comprehensive coverage and instead providing diagnostic, preventive, restorative and periodontal care to those at or below 133% of poverty. Coverage would begin Jan. 1, 2023, subject to the availability of funds, but this is a great step forward in our efforts to provide quality care to all Marylanders.

I will leave with a reminder. If we want to continue cultivating relationships with members of the General Assembly that can help us with positive actions like we are seeing this year, we must support MARPAC. Several of our components have stepped up to fill a big gap in our donations. Please take a few minutes to send a few dollars to MARPAC. We’ve made it easy! You can either:

write a check payable to MARPAC and send to the MSDA at 8901 Hermann Drive, Columbia, MD 21045
pay through PayPal at: www.paypal.me/MARPACMD
send through Venmo - @MARPACMD

We have less than a month left in the session. Be checking your emails as we’ll be calling on you to help ensure these bills continue to move forward with your legislators.