Daily, thousands of Americans wake up on their first day of retirement with no dental health benefits. How do we ensure that all seniors get access to needed dental care?

At their recent salon, Expanding Oral Healthcare for America’s Seniors, the Santa Fe Group and a diverse group of leaders came together to develop initiatives to improve the understanding on aging and oral health. They also teamed up to look for answers on how to achieve the important goal of expanded access to basic dental care for the aging American population.

In this interview, Dr. R. Bruce Donoff, Dean of Harvard School of Dental Medicine, spoke with Compendium about the issue of coverage in Medicare as a way to bring medicine and dentistry together at a practical level.