KXO RADIO - County Dental Program to end July 31

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Todays is : Saturday, 11 October 2008

Written by George Gale
Tuesday, 01 July 2008
(Supervisors agree to dismantle Dental Program)….Tuesday the County Board of Supervisors agreed the County Dental Program would end July 31. Robin Hodgkin, Public Health Director, requested the action from the Board. Hodgkin said the County Dental Program was no longer viable, and had been decreasingly loosing patients for the past five years. She says the 51 patients currently being treated under the County Program will be referred to either Clinicas de Salud or possibly Western dental. Hodgkin said the majority of the 51 patients are children receiving medi-cal. She said the County Dental program began in 1991 and provided a very productive service until about five years ago. The Director said that is when several other providers began arriving in the area. She said the new providers accepted medi-cal and medi-care, and most of the patients went to them. Hodgkin said with the decline of billable revenue, it was not feasible to maintain a County program. Three positions in the Dental Program will be deleted, but only the Dentist will be let go. The other two will be reassigned within the Health Department.