California's Assembly Health Committee has voted in support of a bill that would expand the role of dental assistants.
Jenny Kattlove, director of strategic health initiatives at the Children's Partnership, noted in a statement that the final vote for bill AB 1174 was 17-0. The bill would enact policies to ensure the successful Virtual Dental Home demonstration project could be replicated and sustained by changing workforce policies and requiring Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program, to pay for care provided through the advanced technology used in the program, she explained.
"This bill would authorize a registered dental assistant to determine which radiographs to perform if he or she has completed a specified educational program," the bill noted. It would also enable them to place interim therapeutic restorations while under the supervision of a licensed dentist, as well as operate dental radiography equipment. After completing a course of instruction approved by the committee, dental assistants could also "determine which radiographs to perform and place interim therapeutic restorations upon the order of a licensed dentist."
One aspect of the bill would enable "teledentistry," which would eliminate the requirement of face-to-face contact between a healthcare provider and a patient in the Medi-Cal program.
The bill would define that term to mean "an asynchronous transmission of dental information to be reviewed at a later time by a licensed dentist at a distant site, where the dentist at the distant site reviews the dental information without the patient being present in real time."
The legislation could help provide dental care to high-risk children and other underserved populations around the state by bringing preventative care directly to them in places such as schools and Head Start sites, Kattlove said.
