Molokai Community Health Center

Amount Appropriated?

$1.7M

FFID tracks stages 1–2 — stages 3–5 vary by agency, assistance type, and earmark structure.

Project Description

Molokai Community Health Center is expanding its dental clinic to meet the overwhelming demand for dental services from Medicaid patients on the island. Nearly 70% of our patients are on Medicaid, who often struggle to find dentists willing to accept Medicaid reimbursement. Adult Dental Medicaid in the State of Hawaii continues to be underfunded, leading to a vast group of residents who are unable to access dental care. As a Federally Qualified Health Center, MCHC is able to mitigate this need by receiving cost-based reimbursements from the Federal government for each service. \n\nMCHC\u2019s dental practice is currently able to serve over 1,000 patients through our existing program and is the only dental operation on island that is accepting new patients. We are proposing to double the size of the clinic, this would expand our capacity to six operatories with specialized space for equipment and oral procedures that currently are only available off island which results in travel costs and time away from work or school for residents, and additional office space for increased dentist providers and faculty training with a dental and hygiene residency training program.\n\nFinally, the dental expansion\u2019s inclusion to build workforce capacity with a Dentist and Hygiene residency and training program provides the Center and the island of Molokai with a sustainable source of recruitment of new Dentists for on-going care, as well as provides an advanced health career option for on-island residents to learn and be placed in right in their hometown. The work it takes to provide on-site training opportunities for up-and-coming clinicians in rural communities is the right thing to do in order to build the future of tomorrow's healthcare workforce, regardless of where those clinicians choose to practice long-term.