The Health Foundation of Central Mass

26 launched in Fitchburg, Leominster, and Gardner in 2001. As part of e Health Foundation's funding for OHINCM, a dental services component was added to the existing Gateway Health Access Program (GHAP). GHAP began in 1998 as a regional part- nership comprised of physicians, hospitals, community agencies, and area residents working to improve the health and well-being of the area by increasing access for the uninsured to coordinated systems of care. e dental services component expand- ed GHAP to include private practice den- tists who agreed to take a predetermined number of GHAP medical participants at a reduced rate. e GHAP dental program was also case managed to ensure patient compliance with appointment attendance and payment at the time of service. e program was designed to create a network of doctors who would see patients on a sliding fee scale, according to Lorie Martiska, OHINCM co-chair and vice president of community relations and development at Heywood Hospital at the time. e Health Foundation provided funding for case management to make it easy for both dentists and patients to sign up for the program. "e Health Founda- tion provided a structure so the doctors would have no administrative duties," said Ms. Martiska. e OHINCM achieved several import- ant outcomes, including: • establishing and expanding sites for den- tal services at three Community Health Centers in Fitchburg, Gardner, and Leominster and through the ACTION Health Services program for the home- less and publicly housed populations; • providing school-based dental services, including sealants of molars, at 16 schools in five districts for grades K-5; • expanding the dental hygiene program at Mount Wachusett Community Col- lege in 2005, continuing to this day. e CMOHI and OHINCM joined the advocacy efforts of Health Care For All's statewide Oral Health Advocacy Task Force to secure public policy changes, resulting in changes to state laws and reg- ulations that increased sustained access to oral health services, including: • the restoration of MassHealth adult den- tal health benefits; • increased reimbursement rates for chil- dren and adults; • funding for a third-party administrator for the MassHealth dental program; • increased funding for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health's Office of Oral Health; and • funding for the BEST (Bringing Early Education, Screening, and Treatment) Oral Health Program, a preschool oral health project. e Task Force and state legislators created the Oral Health Caucus in 2005, believed to be the first such caucus in the nation. Since these early projects, the Health Foundation has continued to support oral health initiatives in the region n SYNERGY INITIATIVE - ROUND 1 "The Health Foundation brought a group together to problem-solve and this resulted in more dentists when the rules changed to accept MassHealth." Lorie Martiska, co-chair, OHINCM

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