Nursing Homes and Dental Care

Senate Committee Chair Urges Better Dental Care in Nursing Homes

WASHINGTON, D.C. — December 7, 2001 — The chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, Sen. John Breaux, recently urged the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to improve dental care standards in nursing homes. A federal agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, the CMS oversees nursing homes that are certified to take patients under Medicare and Medicaid.

The senator stressed that nursing homes do not have a list of quality indicators related to oral health. He also noted that nursing home facility surveyors do not receive specific instructions on how to review dental problems (United States Senate, Special Committee on Aging, press release, November 14, 2001).

“Nursing homes must better assess oral health care problems, bolster staff training and increase access to dental care,” Sen. Breaux said. “Access to dental care and assessment of oral health problems are already mandated by law and now must be properly implemented. Despite the fact that dental problems occur more often in nursing facilities, these facilities report very few problems. Without an accurate estimate of these problems, we cannot even begin to consider how to fix them.”

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