Volume 9 • 2022 • Issue 4

We’ve held a series of virtual outreach sessions to harness the expertise of dentists and the oral health care sector in Canada. One significant concern for dentists is that their patients might lose private employer-sponsored insurance that currently works very well. likely satisfy the terms of the Liberals’ supply-and- confidence agreement with the NDP. However, I expect that negotiating long-term deals with the provinces and territories will be the next order of business for the federal government. Likely, the public won’t learn anything official about this program until later this year. Q Can you tell us a little more about the CDA’s advocacy efforts over the last two months? AB: CDA is working to maximize our unified voice in this multi-stakeholder policy discussion and we’ve had some feedback that the federal officials appreciate the expertise we bring to the table. We met with Health Canada officials and other oral health stakeholders on April 25, then we shared our preliminary thoughts on the federal investment in a letter to Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos. On May 12, we met with Minister Duclos as part of our Days on the Hill meetings (p. 13 ). The Health Minister met with us and other stakeholders again in June. Also, we gave testimony to the House of Commons Finance Committee on Budget 2022. Recently, we sent a letter to the Health Minister and suggested that his office work consciously and deliberately to make sure that this funding best meets the oral health needs of the most vulnerable Canadians. We also underlined the importance that his office collaborates with provincial and territorial governments on dental care as soon as possible. Q Last time we talked, you mentioned that CDA was hosting virtual roundtables. How have these gone? AB: Since May, we’ve held a series of virtual outreach sessions to harness the expertise of dentists and the oral health care sector in Canada. The goal of these sessions was to help inform CDA’s ongoing advocacy with the federal government on this substantial and historic investment in dental care. As part of these sessions, we’ve gathered perspectives, recommendations and concerns from dentists providing dental care across Canada, which has been helpful because people in government turn to CDA to provide this level of detail. Currently, we are compiling the information received at these virtual roundtables, but a few common threads have already emerged. First, the situations are very different in different places. Some dentists are happy with the recently arranged improvements in their provincial dental programs. In other places, dentists are still extremely frustrated with these programs and feel undervalued by their governments. In some areas, provincial and territorial programs are missing important services, such as preventative care. Reimbursement levels are very low in some provinces and a real concern for dentists. In almost all cases, provincial and territorial programs already place a heavy administrative burden on the dental office. Another significant concern for dentists is that their patients might lose private employer-sponsored insurance that currently works very well. We also asked dentists what they hope for when they imagine better public funding for dental care. CDA heard that dentists would like reimbursement levels to be similar to employer-sponsored insurance. They also want administration to be more seamless; if they could process claims for publicly sponsored care in the same way that they processed other insurance claims that would be easier. As you can see, our outreach is ongoing as the situation unfolds. Q What’s next for CDA on this issue? AB: During the summer, CDA is continuing our conversations on this vital health care topic. We need to encourage the federal government to move slowly and intentionally toward a system that works well, and not rush into anything that stresses the dental care ecosystem, which has already been stressed by the pandemic. The size of this investment is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address the unmet oral health needs of millions of Canadians, and we want it to be a sustainable change toward a healthier Canada. It is critical that we all work together so that the federal government can get this right. 10 | 2022 | Issue 4 CDA atWork