PDA’s Top Three Advocacy Goals for the 2013/2014 Legislative Session

PDA is the premier dental organization at the forefront of legislative initiatives to improve the dental practice environment in Pennsylvania for both dentists and patients. The legislative session, which commences in January, allows PDA two years in which to advocate on members’ behalf for these important insurance reforms, and scope of practice and access to care initiatives:

  1. Assignment of benefits. PDA is advocating for the rights of patients by allowing them to assign their insurance benefit for a covered service to any willing dental provider of their choosing.
  2. Medical Assistance reforms. PDA’s goal is to work with Governor Tom Corbett’s administration and the General Assembly to enact meaningful reforms that remove financial and administrative barriers for dentists participating in the Medical Assistance program.
  3. Funding for the Donated Dental Service program. PDA is lobbying to restore $150,000 in state appropriations to rehire two coordinators who facilitate care between volunteer dentists and dental labs and patients who are disabled, elderly and/or medically compromised. Without this funding, the program will most likely end, leaving hundreds of Pennsylvanians without care.

While PDA takes a focused approach in limiting its primary advocacy efforts to these three issues, we will monitor and address these issues on an as-needed basis:

  • Representing dentistry’s interests if Pennsylvania implements a health insurance exchange and other federal health care reform measures.
  • Allowing out-of-state dentists to volunteer for charitable events in Pennsylvania. 
  • Dental practice ownership issues.
  • Limiting the timeframe in which insurers may retroactively deny dental claims. 
  • Protecting the current dental team model and patients’ safety by limiting or restricting the unsupervised practice of non-dentists; other workforce and scope of practice issues.
  • Providing incentives to dentists to practice in Pennsylvania, particularly underserved areas (i.e. tax breaks and health care practitioner student loan forgiveness) 
  • Promoting oral health literacy programs to improve Pennsylvanians’ oral health. 
  • Supporting the dental schools’ initiative to attract more dentists to serve as faculty. 
  • Advocating for community water fluoridation to prevent oral disease. 
  • Providing healthy beverage and snack options in Pennsylvania schools. 
  • Representing dentists’ interests as the state implements PHIX, the electronic exchange of medical and dental records. 
  • Coordination of benefits so the employed spouses receive their full benefit structure under both insurances.

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