G-1905-15097

This investment supports Justice in Aging to continue to engage key stakeholders—including policymakers, advocacy groups, and OPEN members—around the importance of, and implementation strategy for, a dental benefit in Medicare. Justice in Aging is a national non-profit legal advocacy organization that fights senior poverty through law, with a special focus on populations that have traditionally lacked legal protection such as women, people of color, LGBTQ individuals, people with limited English proficiency, among others. Justice in Aging is well-respected in the Medicare sector and has a strong reputation as an effective advocate when it comes to defending and expanding rights for Medicare recipients or those individuals who are dually-eligible for Medicaid and Medicare. Through this work, Justice in Aging will continue to work to support the consensus defined oral health benefit in Medicare, bringing the legal and policy implications with a health equity lens and exploring the potential for a value-based model for the dental benefit and implications for dually-eligible recipients; engage the aging and disability advocacy community in this work; and support the Oral Health Progress and Equity Network's capacity to advocate for this issue through learning opportunities and capacity building. $65,800 will be used to support personnel time and communications necessary to implement the project's objectives. This work aligns with the OH2020 goal to include an adult dental benefit in publicly funded health coverage, and the target that by 2020, Medicare includes an extensive dental benefit.