Dental Chair
Overview of Dental Clinic Services
A dental clinic provides complete oral health care. It offers routine check-ups, teeth cleaning, fillings, root canals, braces, and tooth extractions. Staff include dentists, dental surgeons, and oral hygienists who use tools like X-ray machines, specialized chairs, and cleaning instruments to keep teeth and gums healthy.
In the dental clinic model, dental providers offer safety net oral health services to individuals. Some rural communities are using existing dental clinics when implementing this model, while others seek funding to build new freestanding clinics or open new clinics within an existing local medical center. In one rural program that participates in an oral health consortium, four dental clinics operate in a partner's building at no cost. Some dental clinic programs may only offer emergency oral health services. Some rural dental clinics offer regular preventive, restorative, surgical, and rehabilitation services to patients.
In addition to these services, dental clinics may offer patient education on oral hygiene, self-care, and wellness maintenance. Rural dental clinics may also provide services for expecting mothers and mothers with infants, such as information about newborn hygiene and bottle-feeding, sample dental products, dental wipes, and treatment schedules. In some dental clinics, dentists or dental students offer their services free of charge. Other dental clinics may accept Medicaid payments or use a sliding fee scale. Some dental clinics offer only emergency dental services, and such services are offered at reduced rates.
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