ReachOut Healthcare America facts for kids
ReachOut Healthcare America (RHA) is a company that helps organize dental services. Its main office is in Farmington Hills, Michigan. The company works in 22 states across the U.S. It helps connect dentists with children who might not otherwise get dental care. Many of these children are on Medicaid, which helps families with healthcare costs.
In 2011, ReachOut helped arrange dental care in 8,700 schools. They helped nearly 500,000 children get dental check-ups and treatments that year. By May 2012, they had helped 1.5 million patients in total.
The company has a special program called "Big Smiles." This program helps bring dentists to schools using mobile dental clinics. They also used to help older people and those with disabilities in nursing homes, but they stopped that program in 2011.
Some people have raised concerns about the "Big Smiles" program. They worried that the company might encourage dentists to do too many procedures to get more money from Medicaid. However, ReachOut Healthcare America says it provides a very important service. They help children who don't have easy access to dental care. The company also states that it does not hire dentists directly. It also does not make decisions about patient care for the dentists who visit schools.
How ReachOut Healthcare America Started
ReachOut was founded in 1997 by Michael Howell and Daniel Goldsmith. It first started by helping organize dental services for people in nursing homes in Michigan. Later, the company began to help schools. By late 2003, they also helped foster programs, group homes, homeless shelters, and mental health facilities.
In 2005, ReachOut began working with five school districts. These districts were located in St. Louis County, Missouri.
In November 2007, a company called Sentinel Capital Partners invested money in ReachOut. This helped ReachOut grow a lot. They helped 500% more patients and bought two other similar companies. Later, Morgan Stanley Private Equities became the owner of ReachOut.
Concerns and Partnerships
In October 2011, a boy from Camp Verde, Arizona had a dental procedure through a dentist working with ReachOut. His mother, Stacey Gagnon, said the dentist did procedures without her permission. The boy's parents, Darren and Stacey Gagnon, raised concerns about this. In November 2011, the superintendent of the Camp Verde Unified School District stopped ReachOut from working in their schools.
The company also had a partnership with the Clark County School District in Nevada. This is the largest school district in Nevada. In December 2011, the district ended its partnership with ReachOut. Some parents had complained that ReachOut did major dental work, like fillings and crowns, without properly telling them. A main reason for ending the partnership was concern that students did not get good emergency care. ReachOut dentists only visited schools twice a year.
Amanda Fulkerson, a spokesperson for the district, said many children felt pain after procedures. School nurses also had many complaints. Fulkerson stated that ReachOut was doing more than just basic preventive care. The school administration felt that more serious dental work should happen in a proper dental office. The school board agreed and ended the contract. A mobile dentist who worked with ReachOut, Derryl Brian, said that their dentists had treated 80,000 children since 2006. He also said that most families were happy with the services.
As of August 2012, several school districts in Arizona continued to use ReachOut. ReachOut helped over 2,000 students in the Peoria Unified School District in Greater Phoenix. They worked in twenty Peoria USD schools that had many low-income students. The ReachOut website includes positive comments from a school nurse in Tucson, Arizona. It also has comments from an elementary school principal in the Deer Valley Unified School District.
In the two years leading up to August 2012, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) paid dentists working with ReachOut $12.5 million. Chris Bird, the CEO of ReachOut Healthcare America, said that during this time, dentists in Arizona treated over 100,000 children in schools. He noted that dentists saw about 15 children per day during school visits. Bird explained that most services were preventive. These included exams, cleanings, sealants, and fluoride treatments. Fillings were also common. He added that only a small percentage (1.3%) of procedures involved crowns and root canals.
In July 2013, two U.S. Senators, Chuck Grassley and Max Baucus, released a report. This report looked into dental care companies. It mentioned concerns about ReachOut Healthcare America. However, it also stated that these problems were not necessarily widespread. The report concluded that issues like unnecessary procedures and lack of parental permission seemed to come from ReachOut working with a few dentists who had problems. It also noted that ReachOut did not have clear rules for dentists about getting parental permission for treatment.
See also
- All Smiles Dental Centers
- Aspen Dental
- Kool Smiles
- Small Smiles Dental Centers
- Smile Starters
- Pediatric dentistry
