The Barriers to Oral Healthcare Illustration

Human-Centered Design (HCD) is the process CMS uses to understand the people for which we are writing policies and creating programs and services. At the center of CMS’ HCD process is participatory design, where we work directly with clinicians, patients, third-party vendors, federal partners, and CMS employees to collaboratively understand the context of their work and engagement with CMS, as well as the solutions we are creating to support them. Findings are used to inform CMS’s policymaking and implementation processes.

In the spring of 2022, CMS conducted the Oral Health Human-Centered Design Customer Engagement to understand barriers to oral healthcare access for Medicaid or dual (Medicare-Medicaid) eligible children and adults. CMS engaged directly with a broad range of external customers, including people with Medicaid, oral health providers, state representatives, and advocates, through interviews and onsite visits to capture their lived experience.

As a product of our research, we co-created the “Barriers to Oral Health” illustration with our external customers to represent their perspective and highlight the most prominent obstacles individuals’ face as they seek to access or provide oral healthcare.

The Oral Health Customer Engagement supports CMS’ Oral Health Cross-Cutting initiative, a priority for CMS.

(PDF)

View the Barriers to Oral Healthcare Illustration (PDF)