The ADA is urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to revise how it defines essential health benefits, saying both pediatric and adult dental coverage should be considered essential health benefits.
In a comment letter responding to a CMS request for information on the Essential Health Benefits framework the ADA said oral health benefits should be treated as a core component of comprehensive health coverage rather than an optional add-on. The Association also requested that CMS reconsider and rescind its current prohibition on states adding adult dental services as an essential health benefit.
“The American Dental Association believes that, both pediatric and adult dental benefits should be considered ‘Essential Health Benefits’ (EHB), which is a policy long espoused by the association,” the letter states. “Coverage inside and outside of the Marketplace Exchanges must include pediatric and adult dental benefits and should not include dollar-value annual and lifetime maximums.”
Source: ADA urges CMS to recognize adult dental coverage as an essential health benefit / ADA News