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Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic oral health transformation project
Author(s) -
Koday Mark,
Davis Stephen,
Melbye Molly
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of public health dentistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.64
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1752-7325
pISSN - 0022-4006
DOI - 10.1111/jphd.12405
Subject(s) - reimbursement , specialty , family medicine , population , medicine , health care , medical education , environmental health , political science , law
Summary The Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic (YVFWC) is one of the largest community health centers in the country with clinics throughout south‐central Washington and northern Oregon. Its dental program consists of 14 dental clinics providing general and specialty services to the low‐income populations it serves. Modeling itself after the YVFWC medical managed care program; the Dental program recently added value‐based metrics to its dental practice after Oregon offered a value‐based dental reimbursement plan in 2019. This is the first‐step YVFWC's dental program that has taken to prepare for value‐based reimbursement and transform its dental practice in order to reduce the disease burden in its patient population. The purpose of this article is to describe the processes YVFWC undertook to prepare itself for the new reimbursement model, which included the development of metrics, a metric validation process, a clinical dashboard, and a method for improving metrics. It also outlines its medical/dental integration improvement brought about by embedding hygienists into the medical primary care teams.