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The California Department of Health Care Services plans to implement the Provider Application and Validation for Enrollment portal to simplify and accelerate Medi-Cal enrollment processes for dental providers no later than November 2022.

The California Legislature approved a state budget for the 2021-22 fiscal year that upholds the will of the voters when they passed the Proposition 56 tobacco tax in 2016. The budget makes significant investments in Medi-Cal Dental improvements, workforce development and coronavirus relief. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s revised 2021-22 state budget proposal includes major opportunities for dental practices and oral health care programs in California. The proposal provides additional relief for small businesses impacted by COVID-19 plus new funding for dental workforce development and Medi-Cal Dental Program improvements.

In addition to funding California’s COVID-19 recovery and vaccination efforts and proposing several billion dollars to tackle homelessness and help schools reopen, the state budget proposal released Jan. 8 supports improvements in oral health care delivery and access to dental services.

Dental providers who receive incentive payments through the Medi-Cal Dental Transformation Initiative can continue participation for one more year. The five-year pilot program was set to expire at the end of 2020, but due to the pandemic the DHCS requested the extension from the federal government.

The state Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom reached an agreement yesterday on a balanced state budget for 2020-21 fiscal year that preserves critical safety net health care funding in the Medi-Cal dental (Denti-Cal) program.

Now that Gov. Newsom has eased the statewide stay-at-home order and dentists are beginning to return to practice, CDA's Grassroots Advocacy Days have resumed. In the last weeks, dentists from four component dental societies met with their local legislators or legislative staff through Zoom, the videoconferencing platform.
 

Gov. Gavin Newsom today laid out a new 2020-21 California budget proposal that slashes billions of dollars in spending in an effort to tackle a massive $54 billion deficit. During the COVID-19 pandemic, California’s revenues plummeted, wiping out the state’s $6 billion surplus.

I love spreading good news, and the CalHealthCares professional education loan repayment program is about the best news for current pediatric dental residents and recent post-doctoral alumni I can imagine. In July 2019, the program, funded through Proposition 56 tobacco tax revenues and administered through contract by the Department of Health Care Services, awarded $10 million in student debt relief to 38 California dentists.