After several months of preparations and construction delays, the Tooele County Health Department's Healthy Smiles Dental Clinic finally opened its doors and accepted patients last week. The clinic will offer dental care and treatment to low-income residents, including Medicaid and uninsured patients.

Manager Cindy Searle said the clinic's 'soft opening' last Thursday drew several patients needing care.

"We had about 13 reservations on the list on opening day, and the people were mostly in for exams and x-rays," said Searle, who is also a certified dental assistant for the clinic. "We are now open to phone calls and are filling schedules, and we've had people tell us they're so glad we're here."

Searle is currently the only full-time employee at the clinic, but other health department employees will help out with billing, reception work and scheduling appointments. The clinic will primarily perform examinations, extractions, fillings, route canals and other minimal surgical procedures, but may add other services in the future.

"We don't do dentures or anything like that yet, and we are planning on doing hygiene work at the clinic in the future," said Jeff Coombs, environmental health director for the health department. "Our services right now are largely driven by what Medicaid or PCN -- which has a more extensive list of services and is for pregnant women and children -- will provide. As of now, we're also primarily just serving adults at the clinic because we're not set up to serve children right now."

The clinic also features new state-of-the-art equipment, including a panorex x-ray machine (which circles around the head), x-ray developer, x-ray fixer, and three patient chairs. Searle said much of the equipment came from donors.

Coombs said the clinic has no set schedule yet, and that patient visits are guaranteed only by appointment. Patients will also be scheduled according to the availability of volunteer dentists.

"Patients will be served generally by appointment, but we may allow some walk-ins if there are cancellations, or if the dentist is getting done with patients quicker than expected," he said. "Patients should always call and set an appointment because we may not always be able to squeeze in a walk-in."

Coombs also said the clinic is looking to hire one more part-time dentist on contract in the next month, which would allow the clinic to have set business hours, and that based on the number of people who have come in so far, he has seen a real need for specialized dental care among the county's low-income residents.

"Since Healthy Smiles has been open, we have found that this was a really needed service here in town," Coombs said. "We also expect to have an open house sometime in the next couple of weeks."

The Healthy Smiles Dental Clinic is located at the newly completed Tooele County Health Department building, which was delayed by more than six months due to construction setbacks and architectural revisions.

To schedule an appointment at the Healthy Smiles Dental Clinic, call 277-2430 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Doug Radunich: dougrad@tooeletranscript.com