After a year of statewide convenings and workgroup discussions, the Schuyler Center has released Moving Oral Health Workforce Reform into Practice, a roadmap for translating policy into accessible care across New York State.
More than 5 million New Yorkers live in dental shortage areas. 43% face major barriers to dental care. But here’s the critical point: New York already has many necessary policy tools in place. The challenge is implementation, not authorization. Too many reforms remain on paper while people navigate pain, missed school and work, and worsening health.
From Vision to Action
Following the release of our 2025 Barriers to Bridges report, more than 100 providers, consumers, advocates, policymakers, and researchers spent five months in workgroups identifying concrete steps to strengthen the workforce. They focused on areas where needs are high, policy authority already exists or is within reach, and there’s clear potential to expand access.
What’s in the Report
The report presents ready-now strategies sequenced by implementation feasibility:
- Teledentistry can be deployed immediately using existing providers and infrastructure. Recommendations focus on establishing a practice and innovation center and developing comprehensive state standards.
- Early Childhood prevention offers the highest return on investment. Recommendations include building a coordinated training pathway through existing systems families already trust—WIC, Head Start, pediatric care.
- Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities recommendations address some of the deepest access barriers by making existing Medicaid codes functional, creating care coordination tools, and strengthening provider training.
- Care Capacity outlines the structural workforce reforms required to sustain these approaches, including authorizing dental therapy (one of the only recommendations requiring legislation and the only strategy that adds new treatment capacity), implementing the 2025 collaborative practice dental hygiene law, and expanding community-based workforce roles.
- Cross-cutting recommendations align Medicaid policy, expand fluoride varnish access, and embedding oral health into non-dental systems to scale prevention statewide.
What’s Required
Most recommendations can be implemented without legislative action. Many require only coordination, clear guidance, and modest starter funding. The report outlines specific roles for state agencies and philanthropy to accelerate progress.
Waiting is not a strategy. These recommendations focus on what can be done now.
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