Oral Preventive Expanded Function Dental Assistant: Where We Are


by VICKI WILBERS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR


the middle of March. What is not yet in place is the approval of a state waiver for the Pilot Project to commence. Although this has been a fluid process to get across the finish line, we are assured it is being reviewed and will proceed forward. Once that occurs, the OPA’s in the clinical pilot sites will be allowed to progress with their practicums, providing care to patients under the direct supervision of a dentist or hygienist. Once those com- mence, there will be a six-month timeframe whereby data will be collected testing the use of the newly trained dental assistant in these settings, only.


W


We continue to be asked frequently by our members, “When will OPA be available as a new team member.” We know of shortages and the difficulty you are facing providing care without adequate team members. A recent member email asked, “When can I use the OPA … we have 10,000+ active patients and unable to provide care for them all?” These anecdotal comments — and the prem- ise of an OPA as a part of the dental team — continue to resonate with many providers.


One member recently shared their practice struggles and ideas for how they foresaw utilization of an OPA stating, “Our practice has been attempting to hire a hygienist for 12+ months with no success. We have hired two recruiting firms to help with the search, costing us thousands. We have 20,000+ ac- tive patients with one full-time hygienist. We find ourselves unable to schedule Medicaid patients before their SRP pre-auth expires, unable to schedule timely perio mainte- nance, and unable to keep healthy patients on a proper recall. Roughly 20 percent of our patients are healthy or gingivitis, so OPA EFDAs would free up this time for our hygienist to focus on more periodontally


ith the MDA dental educa- tion facility completed, the final training for the second round of OPAs occurred in


involved patients. Also, our hygienist runs with an assistant and, if that assistant was OPA EFDA, together they could coordinate to treat more patients than either of them in- dividually. If we had multiple OPAs to free up hygiene for periodontally involved patients, I believe we could push that 80:20 ratio in the right direction, further freeing up our hygienist and opening the pool of patients available to the OPA EFDA.”


Recent ADA Health Policy Institute data from their ongoing economic surveys asked dentists, “Compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic, has your practice changed the way the workload is divided among dentists and staff?” The startling response was the most common way the division has changed is “dentists (49.7 percent) are now performing more tasks normally performed by hygien- ists, assistants and administrative staff.”


We know this cannot continue if we want members and their teams to succeed in the profession and patients to receive care. We want members to know we are listening, and we are working toward shortage solutions, but these things take time.


If there is anything a supporter of the OPA (and EFDA) could do right now, it’s talk to your representative or senator about the ex- treme need of this type of dental healthcare worker. Share with them how this is a solu- tion that allows proven Expanded Functions education and training and educate more dental healthcare professionals. Explain how this would allow for dentist delegation and supervision to ensure quality and safety and how it would ultimately provide more care that is increasingly backlogged.


The goal of the pilot testing is to show ef- ficacy and safety so we can move to legislate an OPA as a type of an Expanded Function Dental Assistant. But ultimately, it is the leg- islature that will be the decision makers for this position to be allowed statewide. Make


sure they know of your support. Visit moden- tal.org/opapilot for complete information, including talking points for your legislators.


One final note regarding the new dental edu- cation training facility at the MDA. It is not only a place for OPA training, but all EFDA training — and all MDA EFDA courses are now provided there in addition to the Basic Skills Review Course, and we are working to add a nitrous monitoring course for dental assistants. It’s been a win for the profes- sion — to have a consistent, high-quality environment for CE that alleviates burden of using member practices, but also it allows the MDA to look to the future and provide CE courses we know are needed. We also will be discussing using the space to host clinical dentist education programs that will benefit the profession.


Contact Vicki at vicki@modentalmail.org.


ISSUE 1 | SPRING 2024 | focus 13


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32