Transforming Our Oral Health System to Serve All People in Maine
The Maine Oral Health Funders (MOHF), an affinity group of funders including PCOH that first convened over 15 years ago, have been developing an initiative to promote strategic systemic changes focused on improved oral health care access and quality for all people in Maine. The Network is working in partnership with the MOHF on this critical initiative. In 2020 during the onset of the pandemic, the MOHF saw an immediate need to address the sustainability of Maine’s five core safety-net dental centers, as well as long-term issues in the broader system’s struggle to provide access and quality of care for all Maine residents. The MOHF have developed a 3-year plan for the initiative working toward the following goals:
- Sustain, immediately and long-term, Maine’s five core safety-net dental centers;
- Grow the dental workforce to increase the system’s capacity, especially the number of providers that provide care for patients with MaineCare;
- Support provider and patient readiness for and the implementation of the MaineCare adult dental benefits taking place in July 2022; and
- Ensure the oral health system is financially sustainable to achieve greater access to quality of oral health care for all people in Maine.
Among other efforts, the initiative has launched the Maine Oral Health Centers Alliance which includes all of the non-profit dental centers in Maine. Goals of the Alliance are to build financial and care capacity, as well as data systems and reporting mechanisms, and to test innovative models for delivery of quality care and approaches to increase access.
MOHF members include: Agnes, M. Lindsay Trust, Betterment Fund, Bingham Program, Davis Family Foundation, Doree Taylor Charitable Foundation, Francis Hollis Brain Foundation, Maine Community Foundation, Maine Health Access Foundation, Northeast Delta Dental Foundation, Partnership for Children’s Oral Health, Samuel L. Cohen Foundation, and the State of Maine Oral Health Program.
For more information on this initiative, or for more information about the Maine Oral Health Funders, contact MOHF Coordinator, Joy Osterhout at joyosterhout@gmail.com.