Commentary on ADA House Actions by VICKI WILBERS, MDA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR T
he ADA House of Delegates has come and gone. This House was the last one paired with Smile- Con, which has been discontin-
ued. The 2026 ADA House will meet October 10-13 in Indianapolis. As always, I especially thank MDA members serving as delegation to the ADA, which included: Delegates, Drs. Robyn Hayes, Ashley Popejoy, Prabu Raman, Danielle Riordan, Christine Schoolman, Jennifer Wheeler and Connie White; and Alternates, Drs. Philip Batson, Robert Butler, Garret Cochran, Amanda Fitzpatrick and Emily Hahn. I also thank MDA team mem- bers Halie Payne, who attended the meeting, and Margie Kunze for her work organizing the Sixth District delegation and its caucus meetings.
You can read the preceeding articles from Drs. Richard Rosato, ADA President, and Dr. Cody Graves, Treasurer, for respective House and Budget updates. And, you can find ADA House reports at
ada.org/about/governance/ house-of-delegates.
The ADA often updates or proposes new policy during their House meeting. These policies provide guidance from the ADA to various agencies, organizations and govern- mental bodies, such as state dental boards and legislatures that have an interest in dental matters whether education, train- ing, supervision, standards, etc. Considering this, I want elaborate on some of the more interesting or pertinent items from this past ADA House.
In 2025, the ADA House of Delegates up- dated its policy statement on Workforce and Allied Dental Teams. This included defini- tions of allied dental positions, which added the Oral Preventive Assistant, to its terms and definitions. Additionally, the policy gave a more explicit definition for determin- ing health professional shortage areas and outlined its support for financial appropria- tions for federal education loans, including tax relief.
There can be input on these policies by other organizations in the form of written testi- mony or presented during a reference com- mittee hearing. Related to these workforce policies, organizations such as the American Dental Hygienists Association (ADHA) and Academy of General Dentistry (AGD) gave input. ADHA called for the ADA to not support OPA pilot programs claiming that OPA programs fail to meet the fundamental standards of credible medical studies and result in unreliable and potentially unsafe outcomes and, in general, ADHA does not support the OPA. The AGD felt that writ- ten policies on scope of function or level of supervision for allied dental team members should include input from other stakehold- ers.
In the end, final policies remained broad enough so that state initiatives would be sup- ported by ADA’s overall policies and leaving jurisdiction to state licensing boards to make final determinations.
While the workforce discussions were for the entire ADA membership and all states, it’s important to note that in Missouri specifical- ly, the OPA EFDA Pilot Project is supported by the State Office of Dental Health, the Mis- souri Dental Board and the MDA. To speak to concern of “unsafe outcomes”, it’s the only pilot of its kind which prior to the start of the study, the entire OPA EFDA study proto- col was submitted to the Institutional Review Board of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Human Research Protections. The study was reviewed and approved by the federally authorized IRB as safe, soundly constructed and in compliance with all federal regulations. This ensures patient protection, data integrity and bias control. Further, the final report of the pilot, which was submitted to the Missouri Dental Board in early December, reported that “OPA-EFDAs caused no adverse incidents or complaints: There were no reported adverse incidents, patient injuries or patient com- plaints during the 8-month OPA-EFDA Pilot Project study.”
The ADA Strategic Forecasting Commit- tees (SFC) were dissolved by the ADA House. These SFC were created in 2022 with the intent of modernizing the ADA’s business model and enhancing member value through inclusive forward-thinking strategic plan- ning. This noble effort aimed to engage more diverse stakeholders from across the country and, when developed, included more than 160 action group members addressing things like membership growth, insurance reform, emerging trends, etc. While some felt the committees and subcommittees offered good support to existing councils, others felt the efforts to achieve goals and advance key strategic efforts were not met and that SFC added an extra layer of governance. Although ultimately dissolved, the strategies that existed and were set forth by the Board will continue to be efforts forged through exist- ing Board and ADA Councils.
The ADA Guidelines for the Use of Seda- tion and General Anesthesia by Dentists the Guidelines for Teaching Pain Control and Sedation to Dentists and Dental Students were amended and adopted. Both resolutions were amended for consistency in language. The ADA recognized that other disciplines of dentistry may refer to other sedation guidelines and that it will always be up to the State Dental Board to make rules regarding sedation and which guidelines that state board adheres to. Additionally, development of ADA Pediatric Guidelines for the Use of Sedation and General Anesthesia by Dentists was amended to add the American Academy of Pediatrics as a stakeholder to developing said guidelines. A task force will be assembled to consider guidelines updates. The creation of this specialty taskforce will likely lead the ADA to consider guidelines of all disciplines, which could spark additional changes to ADA policies.
Contact Vicki with any questions at
vicki@modentalmail.org or call the MDA office.
ISSUE 4 | WINTER 2025 | focus 13
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