The American Dental Association is advocating for operational improvements for dental service payments under Medicare.
Three notes:
1. Dental services covered under Medicare are limited to specific procedures in which dental care is considered “inextricably linked” to a covered procedure’s clinical success.
2. The ADA wrote a letter Sept. 12 in response to CMS’ proposed physician fee schedule, asking the organization to continue working on ensuring proper enrollment of providers, timely claims adjudication, and measurement of health outcomes before expanding the list of qualifying conditions.
3. While praising CMS’ proposal to include oral health risk assessments by primary care providers as a merit-based incentive payment system improvement activity, the ADA also noted that this change would not result in improved outcomes without stronger referral requirements, better data sharing and dental visits.
