With a big smile on her face, a young black haired woman sat by herself in the small waiting room of the dental clinic. There was only one dental chair inside the clinic, and it was occupied by a middle aged woman whose teeth were being observed by a young dentist. Dental care was a financial impossibility for her had it not been for the clinic’s low cost services. Go to this site for further information on smile makeovers.
A project of a non profit organization operation, the dental clinic has operated for 43 years. The clinic had a health clinic made for women who were pregnant as well as infants in that organization’s building. Children also have access to dental care at the clinic. We have always been getting our funds through the private donations, and we received from one certain woman what she left us in her will. A year ago, when the foundation was depleted, we reexamined our services and found that a lot of them were being duplicated by other agencies. The clinic was closed because of no more funds to continue its services.
Research led them to find out that dentistry was one need not being met for low income persons, and so they decided to rent out the main building and remodel the garage. The organization raised about $10,000 in donations to convert the former garage into a small dental office. Since equipment had been donated by dentists previously for the old dental clinic, these were the ones used for the office.
To determine who among the prospective patients is eligible for low cost care, an interview with each of them is done. The clinic does allow patients who are capable of getting private dental care so that competition with area dentists is avoided. In order to find out who is eligible for the services of the clinic and also how much to charge those eligible, the clinic uses a sliding scale. The fee scale is based on the number of family members and income. You will find that further information on cosmetic dentistry sydney is on that site.
If a family consisting of four members earns a monthly income of $1,000 or more, the family is not eligible for clinic services. The family, however, can receive dental examination costing only $8 if its monthly income is between $800 and $1,000. For families that make less than $800 monthly, the dental examination fee would not be more than $5. Dental examinations would cost $15 to $20 if done by private dentists in Santa Fe.
Patients may be in their 40’s or 50’s, and they show signs of not having had any dental care. There are a lot of children who are patients of the clinic. Clinic dentists gave dental treatment to children who qualified for federally funded special programs of the county early in the winter. Majority of clinic fees if not all are paid for by one program.
The clinic’s dentists accommodate 20 patients weekly, but they can still accommodate many more. When dentists were kept waiting for patients who failed to keep their appointments, the secretary started scheduling appointments on specific days but not specific times. A dentist sees the patients who show up on the appointed day on a first come, first served basis. We instruct every person who comes in how to take good care of their teeth. Patients who don’t use and own dental care products like toothbrushes and dental floss are supplied with some by the clinic. Their teeth will have improved by the time the next appointment comes.
