Letter to Oklahoma Legislators

LEGISLATIVE LOOP

Legislative Overview & Political Update

The ODA continues to fight the Governor’s executive order to move the state’s Medicaid program to managed care. As part of that effort, the following letter was sent to every state Senator and Representative. Please help by contacting your Legislators and sharing any of the following arguments:

On behalf of the over 1,600 member dentists of the Oklahoma Dental Association, I am writing to urge you to please stop managed care Medicaid in Oklahoma. If this change to our Medicaid system comes to fruition, it will be a HUGE mistake with regards to our state budget, and more importantly, the health of our patients.

Under Oklahoma’s previous experience with managed care, 90% of Oklahoma’s dentist providers quit the program for many reasons, resulting in less than 100 total Medicaid providers in the entire state. This obviously had a catastrophic effect on access to essential health care for our underserved children. Caregivers were having to drive their children across several counties, and in many cases several hours, just to get their children’s basic oral health care needs met. The Oklahoma Health Care Authority currently operates at a less than 5% administrative overhead. Dental MCOs in other states operate at an average of 15% overhead. One way MCOs save the state money while spending THREE TIMES more is by is routinely denying claims and denying approval for procedures – placing the for‐profit insurance company squarely between the doctor and his/her patient. Doctors will not continue to work within a system where we are not allowed to provide the health care we know our patients need. The MCOs will make empty promises about “managing healthcare to improve health outcomes”, but how can that possibly be true when they routinely, as a business practice, deny the health care doctors have determined their patients need? Another way MCOs operate in an effort to save the state money is by methodically reducing provider reimbursements. MCO reimbursement rates nationwide are less than the actual costs of providing the care. MCOs will make promises about keeping the reimbursements at current levels, but in every other state, it has been a bait and switch. Current levels will be observed for one‐two years and then they will start slashing rates every year. The Governor wants to make this change to improve Oklahoma’s health, but how can sending our tax dollars to an out‐of‐state, private insurance company that operates with significantly higher administrative costs, save money while maintaining the same level of care and same number of doctors who provide that care? The math simply does not add up. And the question you should really be asking is how can a private insurance company have any effect or bearing on a person’s health? Insurance companies cannot make guarantees about health outcomes when they have absolutely no control over the most common health determinants, such as obesity, smoking, poverty, eating habits, activity level, etc. And why would anyone want to make such a monumental change to a system 1) in the middle of a global pandemic and 2) that is wholly unsupported by ALL contracted health care providers? History will repeat itself and our state’s most vulnerable population will suffer – We respectfully ask again, please assert your legislative authority and stopwhile these big insurance companies profit – by compromising the health of our patients. managed care Medicaid

before this costly mistake is made. We respectfully ask again, please assert your legislative authority and stop managed care Medicaid before this costly mistake is made.

Thank you for your consideration, and should the ODA ever be of any assistance to you, please do not Thank you for your consideration, and should the ODA ever be of any assistance to you, please do not hesitate to reach out to any of us listed below. We want to serve as a resource to you and are happy to help in any way. hesitate to reach out to any of us listed below. We want to serve as a resource to you and are happy to help in any way.

Sincerely,

Paul Mullasseril, DDS President, Oklahoma Dental Association 509‐688‐3295 cell paul‐mullasseril@ouhsc.edu

F. Lynn Means, Executive Director Scott Adkins, Contract Lobbyist 405‐301‐4073 cell lmeans@okda.org 918‐633‐2044 cell scottadkins.ok@gmail.com