CHC Planning Guide - 2019 - 15

The Patient-Centered Dental-Health
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The Patient-Centered
Dental-Health
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Lastly, treatment services may vary in terms of what you will provide to children or other vulnerable populations
and what you will cover for adults. As State Medicaid programs vary in their adult coverage from comprehensive
to very limited, creating a meaningful and affordable scope of practice where benefits don't support those can be
challenging. HRSA provides guidelines in this area.

Procedures vs. Equipment
As you review the procedures that will meet your scope based on your patients' needs, you can determine the
equipment you will require to support each aspect of care. By eliminating equipment that sounds useful but
provides no real support to your activities, you can be much more cost-effective.
For example, when you consider whether or not you will support prosthetics in your clinic, ask yourself how
much lab work you will really need to do in-house. What types of lab procedures need to happen in the clinic
and what can you send out to be done? You may need to take impressions for dentures, pour study models for
difficult cases, or orthodontics. You may want to do simple denture repairs, or, depending on the volume of work
you have, it may be less expensive for you to send all of your work to an outside lab for construction of dentures,
crowns, space maintainers, etc. The size of the lab and type of equipment will vary accordingly.
There are many wonderful tools and technologies which support advanced dental treatment. The key is to be
sure that those you choose will work universally to support your mission and standard of care. They also should
be universally useful to all your clinicians.

Working with a Budget
Setting your own limits
It's very important that you set your budget parameters in advance. Know them well and stick to them. Few
things compare to the stress of having taken the time and effort to plan a beautiful new clinic out to the last
detail, only to find yourself cutting out item after item because "we can't afford it."
Of course, to arrive at your final budget you will have to consider how all of the components discussed in this
planning guide will work for you. Even so, an initial budget with limitations clearly defined will help manage
expectations and focus contributors on viable choices for your situation.
Remember Capital Expansion funding is finite. You may not receive further funding to replace or upgrade
equipment for some years.
If you have a limited budget but need to start somewhere, consider a strategic plan that implements your needs
in stages that build on each other. This requires care and some forward thinking to make sure that you do not
invest in areas that will become redundant very quickly.

What do you really need?
Some elements you may consider as you choose your equipment include:
* Cost-effectiveness
* Reliability (There are reliable choices for many items with mid-range pricing)

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CHC Planning Guide - 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CHC Planning Guide - 2019