The oral health workforce is critical to ensuring comprehensive care for Medicaid populations, yet significant challenges persist in expanding and optimizing this workforce. The number of Medicaid providers currently participating in this workforce is insufficient to meet community needs, resulting in critical access issues for individuals served by Medicaid.
Recognizing the need to strengthen the oral health workforce serving Medicaid populations, the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) is leading the Medicaid Oral Health Workforce Implementation Learning Series with support from the CareQuest Institute of Oral Health. Through this initiative, CHCS is partnering with 11 states — Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin — to strengthen the Medicaid oral health workforce.
Within these participating states, the learning series provides a forum for key decision-makers — including Medicaid agencies, peer state agencies, health plans, schools, and community and provider organizations — to identify priorities and design policy strategies that enhance oral health workforce capacity in their state. Focus areas include, for example:
- Expanding the oral health workforce by empowering providers to work at the top of their license;
- Increasing provider engagement by raising awareness of Medicaid opportunities;
- Improving program design to enhance coverage, benefits, and operations for providers and the communities served;
- Encouraging cross-sector collaboration and coordination of oral health priorities across a broad coalition of stakeholders to tackle related workforce issues; and
- Building a pipeline of engaged providers through creative solutions.
The learning series draws on earlier work by CHCS to identify workforce levers for improving access to essential oral health services for Medicaid members.
