programs to entice ADA members to post job opportunities and to attract dentists in the workforce to seek those job opportunities, and for this benefit be free to members and dental students.


Resolution 506, Policy on Federal Student Loan Forgiveness: Outlined the ADA posi- tion that dentists should not be excluded from government relief of public and com- mercial student loan debt without obligation or condition and set guiding principles for the ADA efforts to shape specific student loan forgiveness proposals. Principles are: 1) Education debt associated with gradu- ate and professional programs should be eligible; 2) Any means testing should account for regional differences in cost of living and purchasing power; and, 3) The consideration for eligibility and amount of forgiveness should account for the cost, length and rigor of dental education programs.


Resolution 510, Medicaid Dental Loss Ratios: Requested the ADA recommend the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) publish a state-by-state assessment of managed care organizations with the percentage of allocated Medicaid funding being spent on dental services, and that CMS require each state Medicaid agency to monitor the dental loss ratio among its contractors.


Resolution 513, ADA Medicaid Taskforce: Reauthorized for another year to continue and finalize its work on Medicaid reform items. Due to the length of the information, the ADA Medicaid Reform Priority agenda items can be found at bit.ly/3trXLtF.


Resolution 518, ERISA: A special commit- tee was established on ERISA to develop a broad-reaching strategy for improving patient protections in dental plans regulated by ERISA. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act was established in 1974, and un- der this federal law sets minimum standards for retirement and health plans provided by private employers to its workers. Because ERISA supersedes all state laws, insurance regulators do not enforce important patient protections enacted at the state level when self-funded plans covered by ERISA are in- volved. Data shows 43 percent of people with


DR. GEORGE SHEPLEY, Baltimore, was installed as the 159th ADA President. Quoting President Theodore Roosevelt, he encouraged his fellow officers and delegates to commit to “daring greatly” to continue to enhance the profession through legislative advocacy, clinical practice guidelines, standards, coding, testing, dental research and thought lead- ership on the dental economy.


DR. LINDA EDGAR, Federal Way, Washington, was voted ADA President-Elect. In addition to various leadership roles in organized den- tistry, she has been involved with the University of Washington School of Dentistry in support of major fundraising for more than 10 years. Prior to becoming a dentist, Dr. Edgar was a teacher for 15 years. She was a national class marathon runner completing over 45 marathons and par- ticipating in the first Woman’s Olympic Marathon Trials. She has also completed two full Ironman races. She has practiced general dentistry with her husband, Dr. Bryan Edgar, for 30 years.


Also of note, DR. DAVID MANZANARES, a New Mexico dentist and UMKC School of Dentistry alum (2009) was installed as Second Vice President. At the 2022 ADA House, DR. ROBERT BUTLER, an MDA member who practices in Webster Groves (pictured at right), announced his candidacy for this same position and will campaign in 2023.


dental insurance are covered through self- funded dental plans administered by a third party and the numbers of self-funded plans continue to grow. This resolution notes that following the passage of McCarren-Ferguson removing insurance carriers’ exemptions, the ADA and state dental associations should work to increase the patient protections for these types of dental plans.


Resolution 303, Advocacy for Dentists to Refer to Tobacco and Vaping Cessation QuitLines: This resolution directs the ap- propriate ADA agency to establish relation- ships with each state’s QuitLines to gather data and information on QuitLines referrals given by dentists and dental team members. It also directs the ADA agency to facilitate surveys by each state to understand their referral processes better and to provide some resources for cessation counseling. The resolution was adopted and requires the ADA report to the 2023 HOD with its findings.


Resolution 304, Social Media Reviews and Reputation Management: Requests the appropriate ADA agencies curate a Reputa- tion Defense Toolkit from the existing ADA resources to help manage poor social media and internet reviews. Some dentists felt the


ADA had an obligation to help members mitigate negative reviews from non-patients and false accounts; others felt trying to con- tact these platforms would be impractical.


Resolution 411, Electronic Archiving of State and Component Dental Publica- tions: Establishes and continues the support of a searchable digital archive of State and Component publications through Digital Commons. There was a lot of positive and negative testimony for this resolution dur- ing the reference hearing. Those in favor believed this system would advance the pro- fession and state of dentistry in the country and cited it as a top member benefit. Those opposed primarily were against the financial implication of $295,500. The resolution was adopted, and the ADA will report to the HOD annually with an assessment of the program’s success including metrics such as number of participating publications, num- ber of unique articles archived, search and download activity for content, and requests for the republication of content.


LOOKING AHEAD TO 2023


The 2023 ADA SmileCon will be in Orlando, October 5-7 (House of Delegates, October 7-10). Registration opens in June.


ISSUE 6 | NOV/DEC 2022 | focus 11


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