Colorado Report – May 2021

I’ve talked about our efforts to work closely with the Colorado Dental Association to the extent that we push pediatric dentists to take leadership positions and become hyper involved in state level legislative activity. In this past year that weirdly, put pediatric dentists in the pandemic regulation driver’s seat. I’m proud to say that a handful of very dedicated pediatric dentists played a big part in ensuring that regulation in Colorado was manageable and that we were one of the first states to “open back up” for dental procedures in April. Earlier this year the Governor rescinded the Dental Public Health Order. So, while we are following CDC guidelines like everyone else, there are no longer any state level limits on dental practice.

Aside from that:

• We were able to work with the state Joint Budget Committee to avoid cuts in the Medicaid and CHP programs in a tight budget year – in fact we ultimately ended up with a 1% rate increase.
• We’re working to make sure that Dental Insurers are included in TeleHealth legislation to require coverage of virtual encounters.
  ITR/SDF – current legislation to permanently add this Hygiene scope of care to the state practice act with all of the collaboration agreements intact is going well.
• HCPF Audit notification (this has currently not been an issue in the dental space) but the bill would require email and phone notification as well as evidence of other meaningful communication before initiating an audit.
• Required School Dental Screening – that group got derailed last year due to the pandemic. We’ll try to get it going again.
  Public Option in Colorado – currently there is a bill to “explore” this. It’s very expensive so all efforts up to this point have gone nowhere, including a ballot initiative a couple years ago that only 23% of voters supported. We always follow these type of bills and generally are supportive. More accessible, affordable healthcare is better for everyone – and, we want to be in a position to discuss and model a dental benefit as part of this as “the experts”.
• Anesthesia regulations are currently in rule making again. Every time this happens groups like DOCS come in to argue that Pediatric Sedation permitting should be easier for General Dentists to attain. Currently in Colorado to get a Pediatric Certificate you have to have attained an equivalent educational experience which includes the 20 live pediatric sedation cases that residents do as part of their training. As you can imagine getting these cases has been the limiting factor. I don’t expect that to change.
• Oh – and restaurant alcohol delivery is here to stay in Colorado. Although I can’t really take credit for that.

Submitted by Jeff Kahl, Colorado PPA

COAPD also held their Spring Meeting virtually on Thursday April 8. Maria Arias, a past Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion at Comcast Corporation, presented on “Understanding the Role of Diversity and Inclusion in Pediatric Dental Health,” followed by the quarterly business meeting. Nominations are being accepted for the next cycle of leadership positions.

Submitted by Sarah Villasenor, COAPD President