Door Opens to Mid-level Oral Health Providers

Minnesota becomes the first state to establish such a statute.

American Dental Hygienists’ Association President Diann Bomkamp, RDH, BSDH, labels the bill’s passage as “historic.”

The bill was drafted to provide dental hygiene care for underserved populations in the state and address educational, preventive, palliative, therapeutic, and restorative services. The bill was backed by the Minnesota Safety Net Coalition and supported by the Minnesota Dental Hygienists’ Association (MDHA).

The Minnesota Dental Association (MDA) was not opposed to the legislation, according to Carol Embertson, communications director for the MDA.

“The MDA was at the table as the document worked through the legislative session,” Embertson says, and emphasizes that the final form of the bill incorporated a number of things for which the MDA advocated.

“The original legislation had things in it involving what the Safety Net Coalition was calling ‘scope of practice,’ that was more expansive than we were comfortable with,” Embertson says. “The original draft also contained provisions related to supervision the MDA hoped would be changed before the bill would be approved.”

Components of the legislation that addressed whether a dentist should be on-site during certain procedures performed under the new OHP designation drew concern from the MDA early-on according to Embertson, who says the organization was particularly interested in how surgically-oriented procedures would be handled.

As the bill passed among stakeholders the supervisory requirements were re-shaped, however, and the bill’s final draft met with the satisfaction of the MDA.

The language of the measure was shaped by Minnesota state Sen. Ann Lynch who introduced the legislation and pushed its progress for nearly two years. Lynch submitted an earlier version of the bill (SF 1106) March 23 which contained a number of revisions that reflected stepped up supervision of services provided by the new OHPs by licensed dentists or licensed oral health practitioners.

Bomkamp lauds the efforts and support demonstrated by proponents from within the state. “The underserved in Minnesota who have long struggled to obtain dental care that is so vital to their overall health will now have a new provider to seek care from and a new way to enter into the health care system,” Bomkamp says.

The expansion of oral health care provided by the new law may be difficult to gauge until academic programs to support the new OHPs take shape. An educational program designed to fulfill the competencies needed to practice as an advanced dental therapist is just getting underway at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, Minnesota. Meanwhile, the ADHA’s web site reports its council on education is still developing curriculum and does not project a date it expects the first graduating class of ADHPs to receive diplomas.

“Time will tell how this program will play out,” Embertson observes.

Dentist members of the MDA are still contemplating how the new OHP will fit their practices, according to Embertson, who says a number of variables will determine how the new role will harmonize with dental offices.

“How it functions will differ from practice to practice, factoring in how a person goes through training, the makeup of a dentist’s patient list and the types of patients they’ll get to see.”

More information about the ADHP is available on the ADHA’s web site at http://www.adha.org/media/backgrounders/adhp.htm