(a) The department shall expedite the enrollment of Medi-Cal dental providers by streamlining the Medi-Cal provider enrollment process. The department shall pursue and implement all of the following activities, to the extent permitted by federal law: (1) Create a dental-specific enrollment form. (2) Pursue an alternative automatic enrollment process for a provider already commercially credentialed by either a dental fee-for-service contractor or an administrative services contractor for the purpose of providing services as a commercial provider. (3) Discontinue requiring providers to resubmit an enrollment application that has been deemed incomplete if the missing information is available elsewhere within the application packet. (4) To the extent that the department expedites the enrollment of Medi-Cal dental providers by streamlining the Medi-Cal provider enrollment process, the department shall publish the criteria for those processes in applicable provider bulletins and manuals. (b) (1) The department shall maintain the provider network on a monthly basis by deactivating a billing provider who has not, over a continuous 12-month period, submitted a claim for reimbursement for services rendered. (2) Prior to deactivating a provider described in paragraph (1), the department shall send a notice to the provider informing the provider that the provider shall be deactivated from the dental program unless the provider requests reactivation within six months after the date of the notice. The department shall not disenroll a provider until six months after the date of that notice. This paragraph shall not be implemented until the date the department implements and programs the necessary system changes to the California Dental Medicaid Management Information Systems to implement this paragraph, or no sooner than July 1, 2017, whichever is later. (3) In order to improve the quality of the dental provider network, the department also shall exercise additional measures as appropriate and permitted by law, including, but not limited to, temporary suspensions. The parameters and criteria developed by the department for additional measures for deactivations and disenrollments shall be published in applicable provider bulletins and manuals. (c) (1) The department shall monitor access and utilization of Medi-Cal dental services in the fee-for-service and managed care delivery systems to assess opportunities to improve access and utilization, including an annual review of the treatment authorization review process. (2) The department shall assess opportunities to develop and implement innovative payment reform proposals within the Medi-Cal dental programs. (d) The department shall explore additional opportunities to improve the Medi-Cal Dental Program, in consultation with stakeholders and as deemed appropriate by the department and to the extent permitted by federal law, including, but not limited to, the following: (1) Aligning the provision of dental anesthesia services with that of medical anesthesia services, including the ability to bill for applicable facility fees and ancillary services. (2) Adjusting other utilization controls for specialty services, as appropriate, to promote access to care while still protecting program integrity. (3) Expanding the scope of beneficiary outreach activities required by an entity that is contracted with the department to more broadly address underutilization throughout the state. (e) Prior to implementing an action pursuant to subdivision (d), the department shall post the proposed action on its Internet Web site at least 30 days before implementation. (f) The department shall work with dental managed care plans that contract with the department for the purposes of implementing the Medi-Cal Dental Program, which includes, but is not limited to, contracts authorized pursuant to Sections 14087.46, 14089, and 14104.3, to provide beneficiaries with access to dental plan liaisons to assist in the coordina
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