West Central Dental Resources Inc

Donations to Caring Hands Dental Clinic provide citizens of all ages with dental treatment and education, which leads to smiles.

West Central Dental Resources, Inc, dba Caring Hands Dental Clinic began as a vision by a group of local citizens, dental and medical professionals to address the shortage of access to care for dental emergencies, dental treatment and oral health education in West Central Minnesota, for citizens served by the Minnesota Health Care Programs. Due to the extremely low reimbursements from the State it had become a major loss for businesses to see these patients.

 This group initally addressed dental emergencies with funding obtained from the County Hospital. This provided places for dental emergencies to go for treatment, rather than just going to the Hospital's Emergency Room for temporary comfort. This did well, other than the issue of preventative, education and restorative care became more prevelant and had to be addressed also. So in December of 2006, with donated, borrowed and purchased dental equipment, the Caring Hands Dental Clinic opened the doors to serve this underprivileged group of citizens. It started with all volunteer dental professional from the area operating one day per week. Within a few weeks the waiting list was several hundred people of all ages long. Funding was sought, more equipment was donated and purchased, more volunteer dentists and staff signed up. The waiting list was not shrinking, only growing.

In January of 2008 the Board hired a full-time Executive Director, secretary, two part-time Dental Hygienists, two part-time Dental Assistants, an occasional Pediatric Dentist and an occasional General Dentist. The Clinic also continued to utilize volunteers when available, but had clearly outgrown a volunteer only situation. In July, 2012, the Clinic obtained funding for additional equipment and hired two fulltime staff dentists, two fulltime hygienists, a dental assistant and complimenting staff. This will allow the Clinic to expand its' services at the Clinic and provide outreach clinics to areas without dental care and education available.

As of this writing our patient files are over the 3000 mark and growing. We now have 4 operatory rooms, and have handled over 450 dental emergencies so far this year, as well as provided over 2000 dental appointments. We have also created a one of a kind program that has worked extremely well. It is appropriately called the "More Smiles" program and it allows our Clinic to refer our patients to private, non-provider offices for emergency care and treatment, and reimburses those offices with what the State pays us. This "clearinghouse" program has been beneficial to our ability to serve so many with our limited size and resources. We currently have, not including the previously mentioned staff, 10 affiliated private offices that help at the Clinic when they can, and provide "More Smiles" services.

With the changes in the State's budget and the decrease in donations, our existence has become more challenging and with the economy, the need for our services has grown substantially.