Presented by Jessica Emmerich, Melissa Kleffner-Wansing, Dr. Mack Taylor, Katie Schroeder, Stephanie Scott
Access to dental care for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) remains a persistent challenge, driven by gaps in coverage, workforce limitations, and traditional fee-for-service payment models that do not fully support preventive, person-centered care.
The Missouri Coalition for Oral Health (MCOH), in partnership with Enable Dental, Elks Mobile Dental, and Southeast Missouri (SEMO) Health Network, is leading a multi-year pilot to design, test, and evaluate a dental Alternative Payment Model (APM). A dental APM for people with I/DD will create system change to increase access to care and reduce dental health disparities. By using select and actionable metrics, an APM will increase the focus on quality, increase dental team capacity to successfully provide preventive care and treatment for people with I/DD, and increase person-centered dental care.
To date, the pilot has delivered over 1,400 dental visits to nearly 1,300 underserved individuals with I/DD across Missouri, utilizing various modalities from traditional dental office settings to teledentistry and mobile dentistry, while simultaneously testing clinical, quality, and person-centered performance measures. This lays the groundwork for future implementation of a dental APM in Missouri.
The project also includes tracking outcomes and examining the impact of target measures on quality of care and access, as well as evaluating how value-based reimbursement can support high-quality care across different provider types. MCOH is consolidating case studies and lessons learned.