Open Door Health Center opens new dental clinic in Jordan

Shakopee Valley News

Open Door Health Center, a nonprofit organization working to make health care affordable, opened the doors to a new dental clinic in downtown Jordan on Sept. 18.

The downtown center operates on a sliding pay scale, depending on what clients can pay based on pay stubs or taxes. The pay is matched to federal poverty guidelines to determine the cost. This discount could cover up to 100 percent of the cost, though with a nominal fee of about $25.

The clinic receives federal, state and local funds to operate.

“Essentially we serve anybody and everybody no matter their ability to pay and we make healthcare affordable,” Open Door Health Center CEO Doug Jaeger said.

This includes those with commercial insurance as well, Development and Communications Director Lisa Wojcik said.

“Anyone is welcome,” Wojcik said.

The company’s main site in Mankato also offers behavioral health and medical care. That’s not on the table for Jordan at the moment, but Jaeger hopes it will be eventually.

The company also has three other locations and is looking to expand more.

“We are trying to fill the gaps in various communities that are underserved as far as those health services go,” Jaeger said.

Though the center in Jordan has only been open for a few weeks, the schedule is already full when the clinic is open Monday through Thursday.

“It’s been overwhelmingly good,” he said. “We’re identifying how we can open up those schedules a little bit more for patients.”

The center identified Jordan based on services in the area and brought a dental clinic back to the same space where one had been previously.

“We found populations that potentially were not being able to be served with dental care,” he said. “We felt we needed to bring that service back to the community.”

Having regular dental checkups can have an impact on more than just dental health, Jaeger said.

“If they don’t take care of their teeth, they have found that their overall health deteriorates faster than if they do take care of their teeth,” he said. “Being able to provide dental care to this community really goes a long way to stabilizing a person’s health care in general.”

Residents in Jordan should ask themselves how long it has been since they last saw a dentist — if it’s been a while, Jaeger said come to Open Door and see what the center can do in terms of care and cost.

“What we hear a lot of times is, ‘I haven’t been to the dentist in years because I can’t afford it,’” he said. “They wait and wait and wait until their teeth have basically rotted out and they need to have their teeth pulled — we would much rather try and save their teeth and help them to take care of their teeth on a more regular basis so they don’t get to that point.”

The center was founded 25 years ago in Mankato by local providers banding together to address medical care discrepancies in the community.

“Over the years, we have grown due to the needs of the local community,” Jaeger said.

Last year, the centers served 8,000 patients and this year, the centers have already served 8,000 patients and the target is 12,000.

“We are one of the few in southern Minnesota that actually will take Medicaid,” Jaeger said. “We are, in essence, the only community health center south of the Twin Cities providing these low cost services.”