Integrating Dental and Medical Services in Mobile Health to Enhance Role as Safety Net Provider

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For the past 30 years, Medical Teams International’s Mobile Dental Program has been providing urgent dental care to underserved populations experiencing barriers to care and poor health outcomes across the Pacific Northwest. Many of these patients are uninsured or underinsured, low-income, homeless, disenfranchised by the current healthcare system, or outside the traditional safety net systems. Due to the compounding risk factors of income, insurance status, and social and racial inequities, they are also at higher risk for developing hypertension, diabetes, and mental health problems. We saw an opportunity to leverage our program to not only address urgent oral health needs, but to assist in the early detection of the chronic diseases that burden our populations and to use every encounter to connect patients to vital care and social services, strengthening and expanding our role as a safety net provider. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted us to rapidly expand our service offerings to include COVID- 19 testing and vaccines to help overcome access barriers and improve health outcomes in our target populations. We are now applying the lessons learned and new networks of partners gained from this experience to expand and scale our services across our program, including expanding to include high-priority health screenings and referrals. We are integrating essential primary care services into our mobile dental program, including blood pressure screening and education, A1C screening for diabetes, depression screening and referrals, and Medicaid enrollment, to improve the health outcomes of our target populations and to connect patients to on-going care. Many of our patients do not have a medical or dental home and have not seen a provider for many years, so our focus is on addressing their most urgent needs while connecting them to a provider to manage their follow-up care. While we continue to focus on tertiary prevention for our dental services, we are integrating primary and secondary prevention strategies to aid in the early detection and treatment of chronic diseases that burden low-income and uninsured populations.

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