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Meriter to close dental clinic, give $1 million to Access for dental care

Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, WI) - 8/29/2014

Aug. 29--Meriter-UnityPoint Health plans to close Meriter Hospital'sMax W. Pohle Dental Clinic next year and give $1 million to Access Community Health Centers to expand its dental services, the organizations announced Friday.

Most patients who regularly use the Meriter clinic, which opened in 1977, will be able to switch to Access, which plans to hire three more dentists, Access spokesman Paul Harrison said.

But a small proportion of patients who receive dental care under sedation at Meriter, because they have developmental disabilities or other conditions, won't be able to go to Access because it doesn't have an operating room, Harrison said.

It's not clear where those patients will go, Meriter spokewoman Leah Huibregtse said.

"That's probably the biggest question mark right now," Huibregtse said. "It's going to be something we'll have to work on as a community."

Lisa Pugh, public policy director for Disability Rights Wisconsin, said losing the service could have a big impact on people with developmental disabilities.

"Losing a major provider that meets this need will be a significant void," Pugh said. "Access to dental care is perhaps the top and most critical public health issue for people with developmental disabilities."

Meriter loses about $600,000 a year through the dental clinic, with nearly all of the loss coming from the sedation patients because Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for their surgical services is low, Huibregtse said.

No other place in the Madison area and few places in Wisconsin provide such care, she said.

"We can't ask one organization to be taking that $600,000 loss to treat them," she said.

Roughly 5 percent, or about 90, of the clinic's 1,800 or so patients a year require sedation, she said. More than half of the sedation patients come from outside of Dane County.

The Meriter clinic was started and later supported by gifts from three sisters of Dr. Max Pohle, a Madison dentist who died in 1951. After about $1.3 million in gifts through 1992, about $1 million remains in the fund today.

The clinic will close by July 2015 and the fund will be given to Access, following actions this week and last week by the boards of Meriter Hospital, Meriter Foundation and Access.

Dr. Stanley Brysh, dental director of the Meriter clinic, will retire when the clinic closes.

Access, which has about 14,000 dental patients, will expand its capacity to about 19,000 patients within about 18 months, Harrison said.

Access, which also provides medical care, behavioral care and pharmacy services, is a federally qualified health center, or community health center. It receives a federal grant to help treat patients who are uninsured. It also serves patients with Medicaid, Medicare or private insurance.

Access has five sites in Madison, Dodgeville and Sun Prairie. It has 13 dentists. Of the three dentists to be added, at least one will be based at the Joyce and Marshall Erdman Clinic on South Park Street in Madison, which opened this year.

With the $1 million gift from Meriter, the Erdman clinic's dental suites will be named after Pohle, Harrison said.

"This kind of gift enables us to expand in a thoughtful way," he said.

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(c)2014 The Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, Wis.)

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