Baystate Health Researcher Awarded $728,647 Federal Grant to Study Children’s Oral Health Care

Springfield, MASS. — Baystate Health announced today that Kimberley Geissler, PhD, Chief of the Division of Health Equity and Health Services Research, has received a $728,647 federal grant to study how Medicaid payment models affect children’s access to oral health care.

Dr. Geissler, in collaboration with Ashley Kranz, PhD, a senior policy researcher at RAND Corporation, was awarded a two-year High-Priority, Short-Term (R56) grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR). The funding will support research examining how Medicaid Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) influence children’s oral health care in Massachusetts.

The study will focus on children insured through Massachusetts Medicaid, particularly in the context of recent policy changes. In 2018, the Commonwealth introduced ACOs as a new payment model, and in 2023 expanded expectations for pediatric primary care providers to apply fluoride varnish during routine checkups — a quick, evidence-based preventive treatment shown to reduce cavities and improve long-term oral health outcomes for children.

“The project strengthens my broader work on how to improve healthcare for people covered by Medicaid,” said Dr. Geissler, a health economist and health services researcher in Baystate Health’s Department of Healthcare Delivery and Population Sciences. “By examining children’s oral health care, we can better understand which policies truly improve access to high-quality, preventive services.”

Dr. Geissler joined Baystate Health in 2023 and has conducted health services research since 2008. Her prior work has explored how Medicaid ACOs affect children’s overall health outcomes; this study extends that research to include dental care, an area where access and utilization gaps persist.

The research team also includes collaborators from University of Massachusetts Amherst, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and RAND Corporation.

Dr. Geissler and Dr. Kranz recently completed a large NIDCR-funded study examining the impact of private insurance requirements for pediatric preventive dental coverage.

“We found that requiring coverage increased children’s use of preventive dental services, but much of that progress was reversed during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Dr. Geissler. “This new grant allows us to continue exploring how policy changes can better support children’s oral health, particularly for families relying on Medicaid.”

The R56 award supports early-stage research designed to generate foundational evidence for larger, more comprehensive studies. Findings from this project will help evaluate whether recent changes to Massachusetts’ Medicaid program are achieving their intended goals.

“Our goal is to produce solid evidence that can help inform state policymakers as they work to improve children’s oral health and reduce disparities in care,” Dr. Geissler said.