Grant will help dental clinic fill hole in its funding

ST. LOUIS -- Samuel Dednam is not in dentistry for the money.

His St. Louis clinic provides the cleanings, fillings and extractions for nursing home residents and other poor clients. Almost all are covered by state Medicaid insurance, which doesn't reimburse the true cost of service.

"I feel that patients with insurance and cash can go to other dentists," Dednam told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "We're serving a market that's underserved."

His Senior Care Dentistry, which he started six years ago, has a high volume of patients. But the clinic's future seemed in doubt despite the demand. Its corporate backer pulled out last year, and then Missouri eliminated Medicaid's adult dental coverage, only to tentatively bring it back months later.

But Dednam recently got some good news.

Hiring two dentists

The clinic was awarded a $1.5 million grant from the nonprofit Missouri Foundation for Health, which announced $3.3 million in grants to address state health care needs. Ozark County received $550,000 of that to set up the county's only oral health facility for low-income residents.

At Senior Care Dentistry, the money will pay to hire two dentists, a hygienist, a nurse and two dental assistants. The goal is to provide three years of dental services to 120 nursing homes in St. Louis and the counties of St. Louis, Douglas, Jefferson, Iron, Ste. Genevieve and St. Francois. The focus will be on patients with cardiovascular disease or diabetes and those on the waiting list for organ transplants.

Nursing home officials said losing the clinic would have been devastating.

"Without this, there would be no hope," said Pat Pritchett, a social worker at Cori Manor nursing home in Fenton. Finding a dentist for many of the home's 107 residents is hard, if not impossible, work, Pritchett said. Dednam "has made a world of difference."

The 30 residents at Loving Care nursing home in De Soto also depend on the clinic, said administrator Dana Christian. Without it, "a lot of them probably wouldn't get dental care," she said.

Dednam's wife and two daughters work with him.

To accommodate the new staff, the clinic will expand into an adjoining office suite. Dednam said he hopes to add crown and bridge work to the practice. And he wants to start teaching nursing home staff to care for residents' teeth.

'We saw the need'

Dednam, 65, became the first black person to graduate from Washington University's School of Dentistry. He worked in private practice and as a consultant until 1997, when he became a dentist for the state prison system. He later was recruited by Lutheran Medical Center to start a new dental clinic aimed at nursing home residents.

"Once we came here, we saw the need," he said.

The $1.5 million grant will not only allow the clinic to continue to help the poor, but also will lead to an expansion of service.

And with renewed optimism, Dednam looks forward to seeing patients who have nowhere to turn for dental work.

That "keeps us going," he said.