care coordination C D A J O U R N A L , V O L 5 0 , Nº 3
A Dental Care Coordination System To Increase Access for Medicaid Dental Program Beneficiaries Experiences in Alameda County, California Benjamin W. Chaffee, DDS, MPH, PhD; Jared I. Fine, DDS, MPH; Yilak Fantaye, MPH; Kristin S. Hoeft, MPH, PhD; Rhodora Ursua, MPH; Ray Stewart, DMD, MS; and Suhaila Khan, MD, MPH, PhD
abstract Background: In 2016, the California Department of Health Care Services launched the Dental Transformation Initiative (DTI) to address statewide underperformance in providing dental services to Medicaid-eligible children and youth. The DTI allowed selected counties and other qualified organizations to create Local Dental Pilot Programs (LDPP) to enhance service utilization. Alameda County began Healthy Teeth Healthy Communities (HTHC), a multicomponent LDPP featuring community-based dental care coordination augmented with general dentist training in care for young children. Methods: This examination provides background, describes HTHC components and presents selected dental care access metrics from HTHC programmatic and state-maintained datasets during the time period of HTHC implementation. Results: From 2018-2020, 8,609 children and youth (ages 0-20 years) who received HTHC care coordination attended ≥ 1 dental appointment. Of all children and youth HTHC enrolled for care coordination, 87% were scheduled for ≥ 1 dental appointment. Of all first scheduled appointments, 83% were confirmed as attended. In total, 34,749 appointments were scheduled at nine public clinics and 25 private dental practices.
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