Oct. 16 Evening Session highlights dentistry’s role as essential care

The ADA Board of Trustees’ July adoption of an ad interim policy stating dentistry is essential health care provides the foundation of Oct. 16's Evening Session: The Essentialism of Oral Health: How Dentistry Fits in to an Evolving Healthcare Landscape.

Dr. Jessica Stilley-Mallah, a member of the ADA Council on Dental Benefit Programs, affirms that oral care is essential, especially in this year of unpredictable change.

Dr. Stilley-Mallah

“I hope when we look back on 2020, we will see it as a year of challenge but also a year of reinvention and possibly even innovation for dentistry," she said.

Dr. Stilley-Mallah will be a panelist for Oct. 16's Evening Session. The panel, sponsored by EdgeDental Specialties, is scheduled for 5:30-6 p.m. CDT and is worth 0.5 continuing education credits.

The panel will seek to answer the questions:

• What does “essential” really mean?
• Is oral health really considered essential in state and federal health policy?
• Given that U.S. health care reform will continue to be a major political issue going forward, how is the ADA proactively approaching this issue of oral health being essential?

Marko Vujicic, PhD, chief economist and vice president of the ADA Health Policy Institute, will moderate the panel. The panelists are Dr. Darwin Hayes, state dental director, New Jersey; Dr. Lisa Simon, M.D., physician, dentist and researcher at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine; and Dr. Stilley-Mallah.