Evansville, IN – After The Community Dental Clinic that opened in 2006 closed a short six years later CAJE began hearing concerns about access to dental care in the community. CAJE played a key role in opening the clinic in 2006, and once again took on the issue of expanding access to dental care to the poor and uninsured in the community.
At the 2014 Nehemiah Action CAJE won commitments from Mayor Lloyd Winnecke, ECHO’s Sandy Strader-McMillan and County Council President Tom Shetler to find funding for ECHO Health’s proposed dental care program.
This program would give low income and members of the community access to quality dental care at a sliding scale cost. Funding was found for the program during the summer of 2014 and there are currently 19 area dentists involved in the program. This allows them to serve around 3,000 members of the community.
The program is run and overseen by ECHO Health a community healthcare provider focused on providing low income members of the community with quality healthcare, including dental care. While the dentists in the dental program primarily treat existing conditions at this time the goal is to expand the program to the point where they are able to provide preventative care.
