Mobile clinic will provide urgent dental care at schools
Smart Smiles will flag students in need
As many as 1,000 children with severe tooth decay will have easier access to urgent dental care this school year.
The Ascension Seton Mobile Dental Clinic — staffed by a dentist, two dental assistants and one or two support workers — will soon begin providing urgent dental care at schools in southeastern Wisconsin.
Columbia St. Mary’s Foundation, which raised $1.1 million for the mobile clinic, showed it off Tuesday at three schools in the Milwaukee area.
The mobile clinic is an outgrowth the Ascension Columbia St. Mary’s Smart Smiles program, which provides preventive dental care, such as screenings, teeth cleanings and the application of fluoride and sealants, to 10,000 students a year in the Milwaukee area.
Roughly 700 of the children needed urgent dental care because of infections, swelling or bleeding in the 2015-2016 school year, according to Ascension Columbia St. Mary’s.
Students who needed urgent dental care previously were referred to what is now Ascension Seton Dental Clinic at 1730 S. 13th St. in Milwaukee.
The lack of access to dental care for children and adults covered by BadgerCare Plus, the state’s largest Medicaid program, is a longstanding problem.
Wisconsin has one of the lowest reimbursement rates for dentists in the country and what it pays dentists typically doesn’t cover their costs. As a result, few private dentists see children and adults covered by the program, though some dentists set aside time each week to see children.
Dental hygienists with the Ascension Columbia St. Mary’s Smart Smiles program will flag students to be seen by the mobile dental clinic when it visits the school.
The Smart Smiles program is among those that contract with the state’s Seal-A-Smile program, which provides preventive dental care in schools with a high percentage of children from low-income households.
The mobile clinic cost about $500,000. The additional money raised by the Columbia St. Mary’s Foundation will offset part of the initial operating costs.
Ronald McDonald House Charities of Eastern Wisconsin, Evan and Marion Helfaer Foundation, Delta Dental, Children’s Community Health Plan, Greater Milwaukee Foundation-Walter and Olive Stiemke Fund and Bank of the West were among the organizations and foundations that each gave $50,000 or more for the mobile dental clinic.