BILL NUMBER: AB 1174	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Bocanegra

                        FEBRUARY 22, 2013

   An act relating to oral health.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 1174, as introduced, Bocanegra. Oral health: virtual dental
homes.
   Existing law, the Dental Practice Act, establishes the Dental
Board of California. Existing law creates, within the jurisdiction of
the board, a Dental Hygiene Committee of California, that is
responsible for regulation of registered dental hygienists,
registered dental hygienists in alternative practice, and registered
dental hygienists in extended functions.
   This bill would declare the intent of the Legislature to enact
legislation that would incorporate into law the new duties of dental
assistants and dental hygienists being tested in a specified pilot
project and address barriers to expanding the Virtual Dental Home
system of care, as specified, as a cost-effective mechanism to
improve the oral health of California's most underserved and
vulnerable citizens.
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.
State-mandated local program: no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

  SECTION 1.  (a) The Legislature finds and declares the following:
   (1) Significant portions of California's population suffer from
significant oral health disparities. Untreated dental disease can
have serious consequences for overall health and the ability to be a
productive member of society.
   (2) Reports from the United States Surgeon General and the
Institute of Medicine of the National Academics indicate that these
oral health disparities tend to be concentrated in people with low
incomes, disadvantaged children, individuals with disabilities and
chronic medical conditions, dependent older adults, and people living
in rural areas.
   (3) Approximately one-fourth of all children in California have
never visited a dental office and two-thirds of all children in the
state suffer from poor oral health by the time they reach the 3rd
grade.
   (4) Low-income adults no longer have coverage under the state's
Denti-Cal program for other than emergency services and too many of
them are stigmatized by having missing teeth, miss work because of
dental infections, or end up in hospital emergency departments.
   (5) A new model of delivering oral health services, called the
Virtual Dental Home, has been demonstrating a community-based,
prevention-focused, telehealth-facilitated system of care in
California, supported by the Health Workforce Pilot Project No. 172,
administered by the Office of Statewide Health Planning and
Development.
   (6) The Virtual Dental Home system of care brings care to
community locations where the most underserved and vulnerable
children and adults receive educational, social, and general health
services. It emphasizes prevention and early intervention and targets
those at highest risk for developing dental disease. This system
delivers oral health at a very low cost per child or adult and has
the potential to save the state overall oral health expenses.
   (b) It is the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to
incorporate the new duties of dental assistants and dental hygienists
being tested in the Health Workforce Pilot Project No. 172 into law
and to address barriers to expanding the Virtual Dental Home system
of care as a cost-effective mechanism to improve the oral health of
California's most underserved and vulnerable citizens.