Massachusetts Component Update
Adam Donnell, DMD, MS
MAO President
The Massachusetts Association of Orthodontists is dedicated to serving orthodontists in our state. The organization is led by a long-standing group of orthodontic leaders, many of whom have served on the MAO Board for much of their entire careers. The Board meets quarterly, alternating between virtual and in-person meetings, and focuses its efforts in two primary areas: Engagement and Advocacy.
At the start of 2025 the MAO Board met in Boston for an all-day strategic retreat facilitated by a business coach. We began by taking stock of our current goals and accomplishments. These included running a successful annual meeting in conjunction with Yankee Dental in Boston, robust advocacy efforts around access to care in Massachusetts, maintaining healthy financial reserves to ensure the strength of the MAO for the future, and supporting our local community of orthodontists with award recognition for those at the start and end of their careers. We also discussed our vision for the future of organized orthodontics in Massachusetts.
This conversation led to new ideas that have already produced results. To fulfill our goal of engaging our members, we created a brand new website, www.maoinfo.org, which showcases upcoming and past events along with making the leadership visible to all. We also added an annual fall meeting in Western Mass to complement our annual winter meeting in Boston. Our first Western MA event was held at Tree House Brewery where we heard from the CEO of Massachusetts-based LightForce orthodontics. The event was well attended by both orthodontists and team members and marked a successful expansion of MAO’s programming.
Grassroots advocacy for state-level orthodontic issues is the other goal of the MAO. In recent years we had success establishing the dental medical loss ratio, serving as a unified voice for MassHealth orthodontic coverage, and initiating the conversation around safe orthodontic teledentistry treatment.
Above all, we enjoy the good that we do as orthodontists-helping people achieve healthy, confident smiles-and we value the privilege of serving the orthodontic community throughout Massachusetts.