Nigel Taverner of Sonrisas - Speaker on Oct 9
Posted by Susan Kealey
Nigel Taverner, Sonrisas Community Dental Center Board President, started his presentation in a quirky way—“ask me questions”. Our questions basically drove the presentation. Q: How many patients? 1,300-1,400 patients, the target is 8,000-9,000.
Q: What are the demographics? 75-80% are Latino (non-transitory, permanent residents). In 2005 that number was 95%. The recession took its toll and they’ve seen people who lost insurance coverage due to layoffs. They are also seeing an increase in senior patients.
Q: What are the qualifications? Currently it is up to 250% of the poverty level. That would be $29,175-59,625 for a family of four.
Q: Who put this together? It was founded by Judy Macias, Julia McCowan, Ray Sheppard, DDS, and Maureen Perron.
Q: So what does Sonrisas do? There are two goals—to provide dental care to people who can’t afford it and education and outreach. They screened 1,300 children last year. During the children’s screenings, they educate them about dental health—the kids take that information back home to their families.
Q: “I visited your clinic once; it really feels like a normal dental office…” That’s our goal; we want it to feel like any other dental office. Ray Sheppard was involved and saw to it that the clinic felt like a normal dental office. (By the way, Ray is very ill).
Q: How about staffing? Dirk Alvarado (formerly from Parks & Rec) has joined us as Executive Director. We have three dentists, an Education and Outreach Coordinator, two dental assistants and two receptionists. Dental disease is the most chronic disease for children. Obviously they can’t do well in school if they are in pain and establishing good dental habits early on would be beneficial. DentiCal (the State dental program) was only for children in the beginning. Adults were added and the reimbursements dropped. Reimbursement under this program doesn’t cover the cost. Sonrisas subsidizes $80 per patient. The number of dentists willing to treat DentiCal patients is, of course, low and the demand is increasing. Sonrisas does refer some patients to local dentists—those that are over the 250% of poverty level or difficult cases, i.e. extractions. The local dentists have been cooperative and helpful. Sonrisas also utilizes dental students.
Last year expenses were roughly $500,000, income was roughly $600,000. 57% of income comes from client services and 42% comes from grants and donations. Don’t forget, Obama Care only covers “medical”, not dental. It is challenging to obtain grants currently as foundations have moved away from “medical” programs at this time, dental programs have fallen between the cracks.
Q: Do you have a fundraiser? Sonrisas has a raffle, private donors/sponsorships, a letter campaign. By the way, they made no money on the golf tournament sad to say. Here’s a Sponsorship Opportunity--$500 Dental Screening at Cunha School.
Want to know more? www.sonrisasdental.org