Community Clinics Lack Dental Care

Providing dental services at community health centers is a good way to improve oral health among low-income Californians, but few such providers are configured in this manner.

That was the conclusion of the UCLA Center for Health Policy of Research, which surveyed 886 community health centers statewide. Altogether, 292, or about one-third, had onsite dental services. Of those, 589 were federally qualified health centers, or FQHCs. Nationwide, some 80% of FQHCs had dental services onsite. In California, the rate is about 40%, not much higher than the rate of all the clinics surveyed.

“Dental care is often an afterthought compared to medical care,” said Jim Crall, professor and chair of the public health and community dentistry division at UCLA School of Dentistry and a co-author of the study. “But oral health is vital for good overall health, and having a dental home helps avoid costly care that becomes necessary when oral health care is neglected.”

A variety of academic studies have connected poor oral health to heart diseases and other ailments. And data have also suggested that primary care patients who have direct access to dental services will avail themselves of them during a visit to obtain healthcare services.

There were few other oral health options for those patients visiting community clinics that did not have such services onsite. According to the survey, only 8% of clinics that provided dental services offsite did so within one mile of its own physical location. Another 27% offered dental services that were further than one mile away. Nearly a third of those surveyed had no oral health capacity at all.

In Los Angeles County, by far the most populous region in the state, 46% of the clinics had no dental services at all. Only 23% offered services onsite, 10 percentage points below the statewide average. The rate of co-located dental services was highest in the rural counties of Northern California, at 51%.

The report suggested requiring FQHCs and FQHC lookalikes to provide dental care onsite; dentist loan forgiveness programs that help community health clinics hire providers; and the seeking of infrastructure grants for clinics to build dental facilities.