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An Act To Improve Preventive Dental Health Care and Reduce Future Avoidable Costs
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:
Sec. 1. 22 MRSA §3174-F, sub-§1, as amended by PL 2003, c. 689, Pt. B, §6, is further amended to read:
 
1. Coverage provided.   The Department of Health and Human Services shall provide dental services, reimbursed under the United States Social Security Act, Title XIX, or successors to it, to individuals 21 years of age and over, limited to:
 
A. Acute surgical care directly related to an accident where traumatic injury has occurred. This coverage will only be provided for the first 3 months after the accident;
 
B. Oral surgical and related medical procedures not involving the dentition and gingiva;
 
C. Extraction of teeth that are severely decayed and pose a serious threat of infection during a major surgical procedure of the cardiovascular system, the skeletal system or during radiation therapy for a malignant tumor;
 
D. Treatment necessary to relieve pain, eliminate infection or prevent imminent tooth loss; and
 
F. Other dental services, including full and partial dentures, medically necessary to correct or ameliorate an underlying medical condition, if the department determines that provision of those services will be cost-effective in comparison to the provision of other covered medical services for the treatment of that condition.
 
The department shall establish criteria to determine those groups of adults for which the provision of preventive and restorative services would be cost effective by reducing expenditures under this chapter, and may provide such services to person within those identified groups.
 
SUMMARY
This bill directs the Department of Health and Human Services to establish criteria to determine those groups of adults for which the provision of preventive and restorative services would be cost effective by reducing expenditures under MaineCare, and authorizes the department to provide such services to persons within those identified groups.