CURRENT
EVENTS
Keep up to date on what is happening here in Missouri.
1. The Dentist and Dental Hygienist Compact bills
Passage of this legislation is anticipated by MDHA in 2026.
2. Have you heard about the pilot programs that the Missouri Dental Board have approved? Click the button below to learn about the current Nursing Home Pilot Project with Telehealth and the proposed Oral Preventive Assistant "OPA" Pilot Project.
3. Local Anesthesia Under General Supervision — Passage Update
The proposed rule change allowing dental hygienists to administer local anesthesia under general supervision was finalized on October 1, 2024, and published in the Missouri Register. The rule officially took effect on November 30, 2024.
While this is an exciting step forward, there are still several actions that must take place before implementation in the office.
Read below for the final rule wording and review the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) Classifications, which will guide the enforcement of this change.
4. Get to Know Your Legislators:
MDHA encourages all hygienists to build grassroots connections and strengthen relationships in the communities where you live and work. Start by researching your legislators using the links below, then invite them to meet for coffee in your area. Share with them the depth of education, clinical training hours, and examinations required to become a registered dental hygienist in Missouri.
Be sure to express your position on the proposed “scaling assistant” expansion, explaining how limited education for supragingival scaling and periodontal probing can put patients’ health at risk. The Missouri Dental Association is advocating to make the current Oral Preventive Assistant pilot program permanent, and we may see this bill introduced during the 2026 legislative session. Your voice and personal connections are vital to protecting the quality of patient care in our state.
Your voice matters — and so does your support. Please make a contribution to the MO-HY PAC today. Every dollar strengthens our ability to back candidates who will stand with Missouri dental hygienists and protect the quality of care our patients deserve. The decisions made in the next legislative sessions will shape our profession for years to come
Left, middle side of the page you will find this box:
5. School Expansion:
Over the past several years, COVID-19 significantly impacted Missouri’s oral-health workforce, and recovery remains incomplete. According to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, the state experienced a 5–12% reduction in dental assistants and a 5–8% reduction in dental hygienists.
Compounding this workforce loss, Missouri has seen a substantial decline in dental hygiene education capacity. Since 2016, four of the state’s ten dental hygiene program sites have closed. These closures include two distance-education sites in Rolla and Sikeston, Missouri (2018), which served critical rural areas; the Missouri College site in St. Louis (2016); and a distance-education site at Hillyard Technical College in St. Joseph, which partnered with North Central Missouri College in Trenton (2020). As a result, Missouri began losing graduates as early as 2016, reaching a deficit of approximately 60 dental hygiene graduates per year by 2020. Over the past five years, this equates to a loss of more than 300 potential dental hygiene graduates statewide.
In response, the Missouri Dental Hygienists’ Association (MDHA) engaged with dental hygiene programs across the state, providing workforce data and manpower projections to support program expansion where feasible. These efforts have yielded measurable progress:
1. Concorde Career College now admits a new cohort every eight months and has increased class size from 24 to 32 students per cohort.
2. St. Louis Community College expanded its longstanding Forest Park program by opening an additional site at Florissant Valley in fall 2025, doubling student capacity from 32 to 64. This expansion was made possible through Proposition R, a voter-approved property tax levy passed in 2021.
3.State Fair Community College opened an additional site in Columbia using grant funding, enrolling 10 new students in 2025, in addition to its Sedalia cohort of 10–12 students admitted every other year. Planned clinic expansions at the Sedalia site, including additional operatories, are expected to increase total enrollment capacity to 24 students per class across both locations.
Ozark Technical Community College and Missouri Southern State University (Joplin) have expressed interest in expanding their dental hygiene programs but require additional funding to do so.
Collectively, these expansions are expected to restore graduation capacity for approximately 60 students annually by 2027.
Increasing the number of graduates from accredited dental hygiene programs remains one of the most effective and sustainable strategies to address Missouri’s dental hygiene workforce shortage. Even if an OPA-EFDA bill were introduced and passed, the demand for licensed dental hygienists would persist. Expanding educational capacity is essential to ensuring access to safe, high-quality preventive oral-health care for Missourians.