BECOME A REFERRAL DENTIST |
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Info About Being a Referral Dentist
If a school district in your local area has partnered with MHS Mobile Dental to provide our school-based preventative dental outreach program in their schools this year, you may want to explore the possibility of becoming a referral for this program in your area. The reason we have provided the information below is to make sure that you understand the nature of this program in the event that your clinic would like to become a referral dentist for patients that visit our clinic in the schools. If after reviewing this info you decide to become a referral, please print and fill out the agreement below and email it back to [email protected].
Some facts about our school-based preventative dental care program:
We are approved by the MS State Board of Dental Examiners (MSBDE) under Board Regulation 61 and have been providing this program to schools in MS since 2010. This program is designed to offer needed preventative oral health care to many of the under-served children in a school district. We only see children that return a signed consent form regardless of insurance status. This program is definitely not a “cattle call” where we see every child in a school. The truth is, we typically get only approximately 20-25% return of consent forms in most school. Of that 20-25% of the total school population, about 35%-40% of all those children have no insurance coverage at all and we provide them with free dental care. We provide nearly $1 Million per year in free preventative dental services. The other 60%-65% of the 25% that we see primarily have Medicaid sponsored coverage and typically are not seeing a dentist on a regular basis. Less than 2% of all our returned consent forms are from patients with private dental insurance.
For the most part, the children participating in this program are not a regular patient of any local dentist. Our goal is not to become their dental home or get into recall, but to hopefully provide the child with an exam, cleaning & fluoride, sealants (if needed) and then provide the parent with a snapshot of any oral health issues that are present with the child. At that time, hopefully the parent will take our information and contact one of the referral dentists in the area to receive further treatment for the child. When they visit the referral dentist (if necessary), we hope that the your office tells the parent that they have dental benefits which allow them to maintain regular dental exams and that they should continue to come to that office rather than the school-based program.
In our experience, there will be parents that sign their child up for our program then go to see a local dentist within a short period after visiting MHS Mobile Dental. In those cases, we can provide the local dentist our digital x-rays and any other information that may be needed if requested. We try our best to avoid this situation, but it will happen here and there. The fact is, we are one of the only mobile dental provider providing a preventative school-based program on a large scale in Mississippi. Before the MSBDE created Regulation 61, companies from out of state would come into MS, see patients, and leave. This made it hard to regulate what was happening with their programs. With MHS Mobile Dental, we work close with the MSBDE to make sure we are compliant and providing a quality program. We are locally based in Mississippi and use staff and dentist who live and work in Mississippi. This program is truly preventative in nature with our average billing per patient being under $167 per patient. We give away approximately $4,000 on average in free dental care every day we work and have provided over
$12.7 million in free dental services to MS children since 2010.
If you would like to participate as a referral dentist with this program, please contact MHS Mobile Dental to answer any other questions you may have. In our experiences, if your clinic does not take Medicaid then those clinics typically do not sign up as a referral dentist. The reason for that is that we primarily see uninsured and Medicaid patients and very few if any children that have private insurance. I have included a Dentist Referral Agreement Form that must be signed if you would like to be a referring dentist for this program in your area. Please don’t hesitate to call with more questions.
MHS Mobile Dental/Mobile Health Solutions, Inc. (School-Based Preventative Dental Program)
Mike Murphy, Executive Director, O: 844.737.7331
Chris Martin, Operations Director, C: 601.467.7890
E: [email protected]
Some facts about our school-based preventative dental care program:
We are approved by the MS State Board of Dental Examiners (MSBDE) under Board Regulation 61 and have been providing this program to schools in MS since 2010. This program is designed to offer needed preventative oral health care to many of the under-served children in a school district. We only see children that return a signed consent form regardless of insurance status. This program is definitely not a “cattle call” where we see every child in a school. The truth is, we typically get only approximately 20-25% return of consent forms in most school. Of that 20-25% of the total school population, about 35%-40% of all those children have no insurance coverage at all and we provide them with free dental care. We provide nearly $1 Million per year in free preventative dental services. The other 60%-65% of the 25% that we see primarily have Medicaid sponsored coverage and typically are not seeing a dentist on a regular basis. Less than 2% of all our returned consent forms are from patients with private dental insurance.
For the most part, the children participating in this program are not a regular patient of any local dentist. Our goal is not to become their dental home or get into recall, but to hopefully provide the child with an exam, cleaning & fluoride, sealants (if needed) and then provide the parent with a snapshot of any oral health issues that are present with the child. At that time, hopefully the parent will take our information and contact one of the referral dentists in the area to receive further treatment for the child. When they visit the referral dentist (if necessary), we hope that the your office tells the parent that they have dental benefits which allow them to maintain regular dental exams and that they should continue to come to that office rather than the school-based program.
In our experience, there will be parents that sign their child up for our program then go to see a local dentist within a short period after visiting MHS Mobile Dental. In those cases, we can provide the local dentist our digital x-rays and any other information that may be needed if requested. We try our best to avoid this situation, but it will happen here and there. The fact is, we are one of the only mobile dental provider providing a preventative school-based program on a large scale in Mississippi. Before the MSBDE created Regulation 61, companies from out of state would come into MS, see patients, and leave. This made it hard to regulate what was happening with their programs. With MHS Mobile Dental, we work close with the MSBDE to make sure we are compliant and providing a quality program. We are locally based in Mississippi and use staff and dentist who live and work in Mississippi. This program is truly preventative in nature with our average billing per patient being under $167 per patient. We give away approximately $4,000 on average in free dental care every day we work and have provided over
$12.7 million in free dental services to MS children since 2010.
If you would like to participate as a referral dentist with this program, please contact MHS Mobile Dental to answer any other questions you may have. In our experiences, if your clinic does not take Medicaid then those clinics typically do not sign up as a referral dentist. The reason for that is that we primarily see uninsured and Medicaid patients and very few if any children that have private insurance. I have included a Dentist Referral Agreement Form that must be signed if you would like to be a referring dentist for this program in your area. Please don’t hesitate to call with more questions.
MHS Mobile Dental/Mobile Health Solutions, Inc. (School-Based Preventative Dental Program)
Mike Murphy, Executive Director, O: 844.737.7331
Chris Martin, Operations Director, C: 601.467.7890
E: [email protected]
Download The Referral Agreement
If you would like to become a referral, download the referral agreement (pdf file) below, print it, and sign it. Then you can return it to us by email at [email protected], by fax at 877-737-7331, or by regular mail to P.O. Box 12605, Jackson, MS 39236.
| mhs_referral_agreement.pdf |
