GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA

SESSION 1999

S	2 

SENATE BILL 1258
Health Care Committee Substitute Adopted 6/12/00

Short Title:  Medicaid $/Dental Care.	(Public)

─────────────────────────────────────── 
Sponsors:

─────────────────────────────────────── 
Referred to:  

─────────────────────────────────────── 

May 16, 2000

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT TO APPROPRIATE FUNDS TO INCREASE THE MEDICAID REIMBURSEMENT RATE FOR DENTAL CARE FOR ELIGIBLE CHILDREN, TO APPROPRIATE FUNDS TO ENHANCE EFFORTS TO EXPAND DENTAL CARE FOR LOW-INCOME POPULATIONS IN THE STATE, AND TO ESTABLISH A TASK FORCE TO MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE ACCESS TO DENTAL CARE.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
Section 1.  There is appropriated from the General Fund to the Department of Health and Human Services the sum of four million six hundred thousand dollars ($4,600,000) for the 2000-2001 fiscal year.  These funds shall be used to increase the Medicaid reimbursement rate for dental care for eligible children to eighty percent (80%) of the Usual and Customary Rate charged by North Carolina dentists.
Section 2. There is appropriated from the General Fund to the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Research, Demonstrations, and Rural Health Development, the sum of five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) for the 2000-2001 fiscal year.  These funds shall be allocated to the Recruitment and Incentives Program for loan repayment for dentists who serve Medicaid and low-income patients in nonprofit dental programs.
Section 3.(a)	In consultation with the State Public Health Director, representatives of the School of Dentistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the North Carolina Dental Society, the Old North State Dental Society, the North Carolina Medical Society, the North Carolina Dental Hygiene Association, The North Carolina Institute of Medicine, and consumer organizations, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services shall monitor and examine the following:
(1)	The extent to which the Medicaid reimbursement rate increase is resulting in an increase in:
a.	The number of Medicaid-eligible children seen by dentists participating as Medicaid providers; 
b.	The number of dentists participating as Medicaid providers; and 
c.	The number of dentists practicing in underserved areas of the State;
(2)	Changes in the quality of dental services delivered to Medicaid patients;
(3)	The successful creation of a stronger coalition of oral health care providers and physicians, funding agencies, and nonprofit organizations focusing on the oral health care needs of children; and to encourage strengthening of that coalition;
(4)	The development of strategies for building upon the recommendations of the North Carolina Institute of Medicine's Task Force on Dental Care Access's 1999 report to the North Carolina General Assembly and to the Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services; and
(5)	The identification of additional measures that should be undertaken to improve access to and the quality of oral health care for children.
Section 3.(b)	Not later than May 1, 2001, and May 1, 2002, the Secretary shall report any findings and recommendations to the chairpersons of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Human Resources, the House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services, the Joint Legislative Healthcare Oversight Committee, the Senate and House Health Committees, and to the Fiscal Research Division of the General Assembly.
Section 4. Section 1 of this act becomes effective January 1, 2001. The remainder of this act becomes effective July 1, 2000.