Elgin dental clinic expanding services
Greater Elgin Family Care Center is expanding its dental services to people in need, and wants to spread the word to welcome more patients.
Armed with $1.7 million in state and federal grants, the Elgin clinic will add three dental “operatories” to its current nine, and will purchase a van and four portable ones to expand its on-site dental program at local school districts, said president and CEO Bob Tanner.
The dental clinic serves about 7,000 adults and children per year, and there are still lots more who need services, Tanner said. “Every time we say we think we've grown enough, the data tells us it's not enough.”
The grant money comes from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Illinois Children's Healthcare Foundation. It also will fund the relocation of IT services and some staff members, and three more exam rooms for pediatrics and obstetrics care.
The dental clinic — where all but two staff members speak Spanish — offers sliding scale fees to patients who are under 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines, or $48,600 for a family of four, according to its website. Patients who are below 100 percent of those guidelines, or $24,300 for a family of four, pay only a $35 fee for dental visits.
Patient John Keen of Streamwood said he was happy to find the dental clinic about a year ago thanks to the Hanover Township newsletter.
“It's fantastic,” he said. “It's hygienically clean and there is well-mannered personnel, both in the office and dental staff. They are very competent and very reasonable in price.”
Adult and childhood cavities, and periodontal, or gum, disease in adults are the most commonly treated conditions, dental director Meliza Quesea said. More complicated procedures — such as the extraction of wisdom teeth under sedation — are referred out to places like John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County and University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System.
Education — of both parents and kids — is a big component of treatment, Quesea said. Dental care also is tied to heart health, she said.
“We talk about oral hygiene, home care, diet, baby bottles, pacifiers,” she said. “By educating the parent and engaging them in the child's home health care, we can prevent problems from happening.”
James Kozar of Burlington said the dental clinic has been a great resources for him and his wife as they raise their three grandchildren. The youngest had an abscessed tooth and the procedure went very well, he said.
“The hygienist that we see, she is very good with the kids. She is very informative and she can talk to the kids and give them the guidance that they need as far as dental care.”
Dentistry is expensive to operate, but the clinic is careful to keep costs low and projects ending the fiscal year that ended June 30 with a very small surplus after $23 million in revenues, Tanner said.
“We compensate our people at market value, but we are careful on how we order supplies, do our inventories, how efficiently we use appointments and how keep the no-show rate down,” he said. “We do a bunch of things that allow us to have low costs.”
The clinic is all about providing care to underserved people who really need it, Quesea said. “We work really hard. There are a lot of patients that need to be seen, a lot of work to be done.”