The Access to Care Committee has been hard at work over the past few years serving the members of the AAOP.

The ATCC, as we like to abbreviate it, serves at the pleasure of the AAOP Council and the president of the organization to serve specific purposes: working to address issues with insurance companies and appropriate coding practices pertaining to orofacial pain and temporomandibular disorders, monitoring and working to promote appropriate legislation necessary to establish appropriate access to evidence-based care for orofacial pain and temporomandibular disorders, advocating for the specialty of orofacial pain, and addressing practice management and risk management challenges in the practice of orofacial pain.

The largest project to date for the ATCC has been to research each state and U.S. territory regarding each practice act and board policy

Through 2021 and 2022, the ATCC has met at least every other month remotely to address many issues. The largest project to date for the ATCC has been to research each state and U.S. territory regarding each practice act and board policy; a summary of our findings was submitted to Council in the fall of 2022 and should be available to members who are interested on the AAOP website in the near future.

Ongoing projects include developing an updated Advisory Statement, researching methods to encourage medical insurance companies to acknowledge and permit those OFP specialists who are interested to be credentialed providers, and investigating opportunities to work with advocacy groups to promote the care that orofacial pain practitioners can provide. There are currently nineteen members of the ATCC, and we are always seeking new members who are willing to be engaged participants.

Our current officers as of December, 2022, are:
Chairman: Kevin Huff
Vice-Chairman: Sherwin Arman
Secretary: Mary Charles Haigler