Episode 23 - The Drill, MARCH 2026

In this episode, Ryan Dunn reports that two workforce bills have passed the House and Senate and await the governor’s signature. The pending Virginia budget proposed a $2,000 annual cap on adult Medicaid dental benefits and opposes a late-session proposal to raise the medical malpractice cap from $2.7M to $6M, urging members to contact senators. Ryan highlights member-only peer review as a confidential, dentist-led dispute resolution option and promotes VDA Member Perks savings programs. With over 21 hours of CE programming, he announces the Virginia Dental Showcase at the Omni Homestead on September 18–19.

HOST: Ryan Dunn is the CEO of the Virginia Dental Association. Ryan has played major roles in four national and statewide Associations while also working on Capitol Hill. When he’s not talking all things dental, he’s talking about his family and baseball–and sometimes both at the same time.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

VDA Legislative Alert – Ask Senate to Oppose SB536 Doubling Medical Malpractice Cap

VDA Member Perks

2026 Virginia Dental Showcase

EPISODE CREDITS:

Producer: Paul Logan

Host: Ryan Dunn

Post-Production/Editor: Shannon Jacobs

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The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only, and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. This Podcast should not be considered professional, medical, or legal advice.

Music in this episode from Epidemic Sound

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to another episode of The Drill. I'm Ryan Dunn, CEO here at the Virginia Dental Association. And each episode of The Drill, we try to run through a very quick overview of the big items that the VDA has going on right now to give you a real cliff notes version of all the work here at the Virginia Dental Association taking place on your behalf, representing dentistry here in the Commonwealth. Each episode, we focus on the areas that we have been charged with advancing as a part of our strategic plan. We have powerful advocacy, practice success, and professional developments. So first up, powerful advocacy. There is no shortage of issues going on in the Virginia General Assembly this year. Of course, we had our workforce initiatives that we put forth. And thank you to all those who engaged around those pieces of legislation. We had two bills that we are proud to announce both, have passed the House and the Senate, and currently sit uh on the desk of the governor. Those bills included one to allow dental assistance after additional training to supergenitively scale. And then we also had another bill that would allow foreign-trained dentists to have an expedited path to becoming a hygienist, both of which to address our shortcomings so that we have on our workforce side of things as it relates to specifically in the hygiene areas. So we are very excited about both of those pieces of legislation moving forward. They are not done with. We still have to get the governor to sign them. So please stay diligent as we will continue to update you on how that legislation is moving. There's no shortage of other issues going on in the Virginia General Assembly. Taking a look at a few other things that we've been spending quite a bit of time in advocating for or against, there is currently in the budget a Medicaid adult dental benefit cap of$2,000. And this is really going to change how Medicaid is reimbursed and treated, but also it's going to impact all the great movement that we've had in the adult dental Medicaid benefit and having all these new doctors sign into the program. But it essentially is a yearly cap of$2,000. And we know this is going to impact A, the quality of care. Doctors are going to have to choose between incomplete or delayed care, as some of these cases are very complicated and costly. And so arbitrarily setting a$2,000 limit on this is a challenge. So we are working to make sure that that doesn't uh get attached, but it currently is in the budget that the outgoing governor puts uh forward. Uh it was included in that budget, and it currently still resides in both the House and the Senate versions of the budget. So there's a lot of work being done to try and educate the legislature on what that means and how that would impact the quality of care, how the$2,000 limit would pretty much gut the program in a lot of ways. We understand it's a budget year and it is a very tight budget, and every dollar is being scrutinized. Uh, so we are doing our best to make sure everyone understands the importance of this, the overall impact it will have on the health care of Virginians, and uh and we look forward to continuing to have that conversation. But stay tuned on that. Uh, you may have also seen our action alert that just recently went out on the med mal practice insurance cap increase. Uh, this is a constant battle in the Virginia General Assembly, where we have quite a few advocates on our side, of both the Medical Society of Virginia, the Virginia Hospital Healthcare Association, uh, the Nursing Homes Association, and the Dental Association. A lot of the healthcare organizations have teamed up and for years have combated uh any attempt to increase the med mal practice cap. A deal was struck 10 plus years ago that uh the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association and all of these groups agreed to with a slow escalation each year to allow for there to be some predictability and also some controlled costs as well. Strangely enough, in this year's General Assembly, we had defeated a bill early on that uh would have increased the med malpractice uh reimbursement cap for those age 10 and under. So a much smaller group that had a longer period of life to live after an instance of medical malpractice. So that was defeated. Uh we we did an action alert and we appreciate everybody who engaged on that issue. Uh we also have seen now where a piece of legislation that was related to the med malpractice cap uh was used as a vehicle in the House to allow for there to be an increase from$2.7 million, which is where the cap is currently, to a$6 million cap. So more than doubling the cap. And really never seen this type of action where uh really late in the game and after crossover, uh something so significant uh has been attached to a bill with an attempt to get this through and really hasn't had much time to be vetted, much time to be debated. Um, and but yet here we are. So update on that. That bill has passed the House. The VDA has been involved uh behind the scenes and at every step of the way to make sure that the concerns we have about it, which are similar to a lot of our friends, like the Medical Society of Virginia and the Virginia Hospital Healthcare Association, that are our concerns are heard in the same manner and a lot of the same issues that we all have. So we've been there, been attempting to figure out best ways to navigate it in the political landscape that we currently are in, and now it is in the Senate. We sent out an action alert just recently, um, and we are asking everyone to engage on this issue. Let your senators know that increasing the cap is just not a smart way to go right now. It's going to increase the cost of doing business and your med malpractice policies will inevitably go up. So stay tuned. We continue to fight on that and uh we continue to be your voice uh at the General Assembly. The budget is a long ways from done, even though they're supposed to be breaking out of session shortly. We are continuously working on that. We've had some major victories, whether it be advancing our workforce bills, killing other bills. There was price change, transparency legislation that uh would have impacted uh dentistry in a big way. We were able to successfully kill that as well. Uh so it has been a very successful and hard-fought General Assembly, both putting in very aggressive and thoughtful, meaningful legislation, but also having to stand up against a myriad of ideas that uh that are going to make running your practice more difficult. Uh, we have killed almost all of them, um, but we will have an episode with Keith Martin, who is the president and CEO at the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, uh, talking about some of the labor issues and things that will impact your office and your practice. It has been a great session, um, a very hard-fought session. It's not over yet, uh, but please stay tuned for all of the upcoming battles that we have. Our second area of focus is practice success. Spending a few moments today to talk to you about the Council on Peer Review. Um, it may not be something that all of our members know that we have, but the VDA offers peer review as a confidential, dentist-led dispute resolution process, and it is available to member dentists only. We have trained volunteers who are member dentists, they evaluate the concerns that are between a patient and a treating dentist through a structured, professional, and non-litigious process. The goal is to reach a fair and ethical and clinical informed resolution without immediately escalating the legal action or a board of dentistry complaint. It's confidential and non-public process. It is something that we really want to start focusing on that brings real tangible value to our members in having a resolution process like the council on peer review. Another big practice success offering that we have that I want to remind people about is the VDA perks. VDA member perks are designed to bring you savings and value. These are members-only benefits that save your practice money and time, uh, but also the partnerships that you may get through the VDA perks system that's also going to support the VDA. All these activities that we're doing in the General Assembly, uh, those are costly and time consuming. And a good way to bring some value and to help out your professional association is to use the products and services that VDA member perks offers. There are office products, services, there's financial services, there's insurance solutions. There really is a little bit of everything. We work with uh RK Tongue to offer insurance solutions, whether it be just for your practice, your home, uh, your auto, it really can be everything. Uh, also your group health plan that you may offer to your uh to your staff. And uh, we even have 401k solutions, a new product that we will be talking about here in the future, which I think everyone will be very excited about. So, whether it's payroll solutions or just looking for a better deal on office supplies, you can find it at VDA Perks. So please take advantage of uh the offerings that your peers have looked at, uh reviewed, and think are worthwhile. And lastly, we have professional development, and there is no greater opportunity to develop professionally than to attend the Virginia Dental Showcase. And we are excited to announce that we will be going uh to the Omni Homestead September 18th through the 19th. We are hopeful that everyone will put it on their calendar and look forward to registering. But go ahead and get the dates of September 18th and 19th on your calendar. You do not want to miss the Virginia Dental Showcase at the Omni Homestead. Newly renovated, uh, a wonderful opportunity to take your family, bring your team. There is going to be something for everyone, including we're gonna have over 21 hours of CE available. Come take as much CE or as little CE as you would like. Enjoy the Omni Homestead, which is one of the greatest resorts uh really in America, to be quite frank. So come if you've never been to the homestead, uh I highly recommend it. A great opportunity for you to bring the family or bring your team. So we look forward to seeing you there. And with that, this concludes another episode of The Drill. I'm Ryan Dunn, making sure that you know the drill.