CHF’s Board of Trustees recently approved $50,000 in operating support for the dental clinic. Including this gift, Community Health Foundation has provided $400,000 to support the dental clinic since 2017. Last year, the clinic served more than 1,300 patients including 914 children; 14% of their patients speak Spanish or Haitian Creole. The clinic provides preventive services such as exams, cleanings, sealants, and fluoride treatments as well as restorative treatments such as fillings, extractions, crowns, root canals and more.
The clinic’s treatment goals are to shift from dental disease to dental health, to serve as a dental home for their patients and to change the culture around oral health. They are seeing patients return for prevention and routine care with stable mouths and are starting to create a generational shift in oral health.
Unfortunately, dental reimbursements are only 40% of the cost of care. Overall goals of the clinic are to improve the oral health status of this community so preventive needs exceed restorative needs and to achieve financial stability.
For more on Rocking Horse Community Health Center’s dental services, visit https://www.rockinghorsecenter.org/services/dental-services/