1609-12454

National: This investment supports Oral Health America (OHA) to continue to strengthen the network and infrastructure necessary to ensure inclusion of an oral health benefit in Medicare. Building on successes from Years 1 and 2, moving forward, OHA will focus its work on: 1) creating alignment among key leaders in the network around a unified method for achieving the goal of including a comprehensive oral health benefit in Medicare; 2) further developing the three working groups established in 2015, which include i) Policy and Procedure; ii) Marketing and Communication, and iii) Politics, by extending existing efforts to include additional constituencies; 3) employing new tools to support the movement and campaign focused on Medicare; and 4) providing new ways for state and community-based organizations to become more involved in that movement. This work will focus on effective strategies and roadmaps as well as engagement of national and state-based advocacy groups. The proposal aligns with the Oral Health 2020 Goal of mandatory inclusion of an adult dental benefit in publicly funded health insurance and the specific target that Medicare includes a comprehensive dental benefit. $668,221 will support the staffing, convening capacity, communications, and marketing.