2021 Colorado Code
Title 25 - Public Health and Environment
Article 23 - Dental Loan Repayment Program
§ 25-23-101. Legislative Declaration

1. The general assembly hereby finds that:
   1. Many dental professionals, particularly dentists, graduate with large debt levels that were used to finance their professional education;
   2. Dentistry is provided predominantly through individual practices, which minimizes the opportunity for dental professionals to provide unreimbursed services while maintaining the costs of a practice and repaying their educational loans;
   3. Many Colorado communities encounter difficulty recruiting dental providers dedicated to serving underserved populations;
   4. Incentives to reduce the indebtedness of dental professionals will increase access to dental care for underserved populations.

2. The general assembly also finds that, during the 2000 regular session, the general assembly expanded the children's basic health plan to include dental services and paid for such expansion out of the tobacco settlement moneys, but, due to a lack of dental providers, the inclusion of dental care services was made contingent upon an adequate number of dental providers being willing to provide services. The general assembly hereby finds that the loan repayment program created in this article would provide a method to develop the infrastructure and resources needed to provide dental services as part of the children's basic health plan.
3. The general assembly, therefore, states that the purpose of this article is to encourage and enable dental professionals to provide care through the children's basic health plan and the medicaid program and to other underserved populations in Colorado by the use of a financial incentive program.

History. Source: L. 2001: Entire article added, p. 923, § 1, effective June 4.