State Rep. Phillip Rigsby, R-Huntsville, has filed a bill that would require Alabama dental insurers to allow beneficiaries to roll over unused benefits into subsequent years.

Rigsby’s bill follows the model of other states, like Massachusetts, that currently offer this option to their residents.

Under HB400, the aggregate dollar amount that someone could carry over is limited to two times the annual benefit maximum that is in effect for the preceding year, according to its text.

The bill adds that claims incurred during the current year but not paid until the succeeding year would be subtracted from the current year annual benefit maximum.

The proposed law does not include accident-only, specified disease, individual hospital indemnity, credit, Medicare supplement, long-term care, disability income, or other limited benefit health insurance policies, or coverage issued as supplemental to liability insurance, workers’ compensation, or automobile medical payment insurance, according to its text.

It includes a provision that allows The Department of Insurance of the State of Alabama to adopt rules necessary for the bill’s implementation.

Last year, a report from the Alabama Department of Public Health highlighted the state’s ongoing dental crisis.

“The access to care in Alabama is worse than any state I’ve ever practiced in,” Carson Cruise, a pediatric dentist in Florence, said previously.

“Mississippi is usually the worst at everything when it comes to health metrics. But if Mississippi is the floor, Alabama brought a shovel.”

At just 41.6 dentists per 100,000 residents, Alabama had the nation’s second-lowest ratio of dentists per population in 2023, according to the American Dental Association.

Arkansas had the lowest ratio, at 41.2 dentists for every 100,000 people.

Both fall far below the national rate of about 60 dentists per 100,000 residents.

Dentists told AL.com previously that the biggest problem they face is low insurance reimbursement rates, especially from the state Medicaid agency.

“When you look at the number of patients I have, I’m doing great,” Cruise said.

“We get north of 100 new patients a month.”

“But if you look at the amount of money the business collects, expenses have gone up so much that what goes in my pocket is about 10% less than what it was three years ago,” he continued.

Efforts to reach Rigsby were not immediately successful.