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Boston-based DentaQuest, the largest provider of Medicaid dental services, wants to buy 80 percent of Oregon dental company Advantage Dental, and expand its dental care organization model to Medicaid programs across the country.

Reproductive healthcare advocates wanted the state to require insurers to sell to uninsured pregnant women throughout the year rather than limiting them to a three-month general open enrollment window or at the time of the child’s birth, but the stodgy federal healthcare.gov website is not equipped to accommodate an Oregon-specific coverage option. Health insurers had warned against cutting such “lawbreakers” any slack.

If a ruling by Insurance Commissioner Laura Cali stands, insurance companies would have to pay for hearing aids for adults, a benefit currently limited to those on the Oregon Health Plan. Insurers are required to cover the devices for children, and the feds insist they cannot discriminate by age.

Three years of below-budget spending by the Public Employees Benefit Board drove the governor and Legislature to take $120 million away from the health benefit plan’s reserve and place it in the state general fund. But now PEBB’s costs have spiked, and the health plan will have to lean on its reserves to pay benefits, cutting the reserve to $159 million in 2018, and possibly draining the fund by 2025.

Be sure not to miss the newest jobs from PH Tech, National College of Natural Medicine, Planned Parenthood of Southwestern Oregon and Oregon Public Health Institute.

Our April 28 breakfast forum brings together state legislators, policymakers, health industry representatives and consumer advocates.

The health insurer intends to exit the Oregon market Dec. 31.

CEO and co-founder Dave Sanders insists his company is stronger than ever and about to embark on new innovations.