Newstrack: Eastern Iowa Dental Clinic already seeing scores of patients each week

BACKGROUND

CEDAR RAPIDS — Eastern Iowa Health Center, a federally qualified primary health care clinic that serves low-income and Medicaid-eligible families, opened the doors March 6 to its $1 million dental clinic at 1225 Third Ave. SE.

The clinic offers much-needed dental services for Cedar Rapids' Medicaid population, as well as those who do not have insurance.

WHAT'S HAPPENED SINCE

There has been no shortage of patients, said Joe Lock, chief executive officer of the Eastern Iowa Health Center. By its fourth week of operation, the dental clinic was seeing about 127 patients each week, or about 25 patients a day.

There's a huge need in Eastern Iowa for oral care for low-income families. The primary care clinic, which also offers OB-GYN services, has more than 40,000 people come through its doors annually, according to clinic data, and delivers more than 90 babies each month.

More than 80 percent of Eastern Iowa Health Center's patients are on Medicaid and 98 percent of patients live below 200 percent of the federal poverty line.

But few dentists in Cedar Rapids accept Medicaid patients. The population has high no-show rates, due to transportation and economic barriers, and dentists are reimbursed for the cost of care at low rates.

The dental center is the third in a series of renovation and expansion initiatives completed by Eastern Iowa Health Center in the past 12 months. The remodeled and expanded Eastern Iowa Health Center opened in October 2016, and the new Eastern Iowa Women's Health Center opened in January. Lock also is working in conjunction with the Community Health Free Clinic to open an urgent care facility in May.

The clinic works mostly with adults, Lock said, as UnityPoint Health-St. Luke's has a dental clinic that works with Medicaid-eligible children. The goal of the clinic is not to replace existing services in the community, Lock, but to complement them.

'We want them to continue to thrive,' he said, 'and to have great collaboration with them.'

Lock brought on 11 full-time staff, including two dentists, four dental hygienists and other staff. The dental clinic currently is outfitted with six dental chairs, but Eastern Iowa Health Center has the capacity to add two additional chairs. Lock also would like to eventually hire an additional dentist and part-time oral surgeon.

Because of the dental clinic's proximity to the primary care clinic, Lock said staff are able to help the large portion of patients with multiple chronic illnesses. Just this week, a patient at a dental appointment had incredibly high blood pressure, he said, so a nurse came over to advise the patient and arrange a primary care appointment.

'If someone is living in a traumatic situation, and you come in for chief complaint, whether that be oral health or primary heath, it's important to have the ability to have a social worker or someone help all those needs on the same day and immediately wrap around services,' Lock said.

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