Dental Care in Exchange for Community Service

Interesting work out of the University of Michigan discusses the concept of getting dental care for free by performing community service. A master’s thesis by Lorene R. Kline titled “No Cost Dental Care in Exchange for Community Service Hours: Participating Patients’ and Dentists’ Responses” (2016) discusses this concept. The article is located over at https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/123017/Kline_MSDH_Thesis_%20Final_2016.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y The work discusses a program to help low income Michigan residents where adult participants were offered $25 in dental services for every hour of volunteer work. The program was titled Pay it Forward and was a partnership between Care Free Medical and Dental and the Central District Dental Society of Michigan. Pay It Forward was geared toward low-income adults who fell between 133% and 250%  of the poverty level and did not qualify for Medicaid. The cost was based on Medicaid schedule fees. The thesis work focused on … Read more