Tag Archives: Medicaid Dentist

In the last 10 years, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama have made huge strides in how many low-income children receive dental services, but the need remains vast.

If you want to understand the meaning of standing up for nonprofit values, look no further than the Sarrell Dental Clinics of Alabama…

Governor Bentley and a handful of other state leaders made the trip to Anniston Thursday to tour the Sarrell Dental Clinic, a nonprofit clinic that serves Medicaid patients at a per-visit cost well below the average.

Only half of Medicaid-enrolled children get dental services in Alabama. Sarrell Dental, the state’s largest nonprofit dental practice, is aiming to change that. The overwhelming majority of its patients are children who are Medicaid and CHIP-eligible, and the organization anticipates serving 100,000 kids by year’s end.

One of the many rural Alabama areas in need of more dental health providers, Heflin might soon receive relief in the form of a new dental practice. But the area is still far behind in meeting standards for the dental health of its residents.

Representatives from the University of Florida, which operates two clinics that serve low-income patients similar to Sarrell, visited the Anniston nonprofit last week to learn its business practices, which they will in turn apply to one of their clinics to make it more efficient.

Sarrell Dental is dropping its slander lawsuit against a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Dentistry (UABSOD), perhaps signaling the end of a 15-month dispute with the school and the Alabama Dental Association (ALDA).

The Nonprofit Quarterly weighs in and asks, “Any other nonprofits out there, health or otherwise, finding themselves under attack from for-profits due to implicit or explicit fears of nonprofit competition?”

Children with toothaches, or who simply need a good, old-fashioned dental cleaning, don’t have time to fret over legislative compromises or professional posturing. They just need help.

Sarrell Dental is dropping its lawsuit against the Alabama Dental Association (ALDA) after Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley signed a bill June 9 that exempts nondentists from oversight by the Alabama Board of Dental Examiners.