In a Nutshell
What: A new facility and technology upgrades for nonprofit Affordable Dental Care is enabling the organization to improve health equity in southern Wisconsin by providing twice as many uninsured and underinsured patients with high-quality, low-cost dental care.
Sector: Health Care
Location: Madison, WI
IFF Support: $900,000 loan closed in June 2024
IFF Staff Lead: Darian Luckett, director of lending – Wisconsin and Iowa
Design: Plunkett Raysich Architects
General Contractor: Advanced Building Corporation
Impact: Three full-time jobs created; 5,000 patients provided each year with affordable dental care, double the number of patients served annually in the organization’s previous facility.
“If you’re not confident about showing your smile, how confident can you be shaking somebody’s hand and asking them for a job?” asks Tanner Voss. “That’s not something those of us who have always been able to go to the dentist think much about, but it’s a reality for people who earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid and too little to be able to purchase dental insurance or pay entirely out-of-pocket for their care.”
It’s this population of uninsured or underinsured patients who for 15 years have benefited from the work of Affordable Dental Care (ADC), a nonprofit based in Madison, WI, for which Voss serves as the board treasurer. A faith-based organization rooted in a commitment to serve others, ADC provides high-quality, bilingual dental services for roughly half the cost of for-profit dental practices. In November, the nonprofit took a major step forward in its ability to serve patients in southern Wisconsin with the opening of a newly renovated, 4,358-square-foot clinic that has both doubled the organization’s space and its capacity.
With eight exam rooms in the new clinic, and three new members of its medical staff, ADC will now be able to provide care to more than 5,000 patients per year—reducing a waiting list for appointments that stretched to six months for routine dental care. Along with technology upgrades that include new computers, new dental equipment, and a panoramic 3D X-ray machine that provides the organization’s medical professionals with more thorough and detailed information about patients’ oral health, ADC is well positioned to meet the growing need for its services.
The implementation of a new digital record system made possible by these investments in technology is also streamlining patient information management, ensuring that dentists, hygienists, and other members of the ADC staff have instant access to critical patient data, leading to more personalized and effective care. The positive impact of quality dental care on an individual level can be profound, preventing patients from experiencing serious health issues like cardiovascular disease and pneumonia that are correlated with poor oral health.
“Getting into our new facility to expand our capacity was mission-critical, because we serve a lot of people who are in need of emergency care – from tooth extractions to dealing with abscesses that are so large and so painful that they can’t even eat a banana,” says Jason Krause, ADC’s board president. “Going from four chairs to eight chairs and upgrading our systems and equipment is helping us see people faster, operate more efficiently, and provide a deeper level of care.”
“Going from four chairs to eight chairs and upgrading our systems and equipment is helping us see people faster, operate more efficiently, and provide a deeper level of care.”
In addition to doubling the number of exam rooms, ADC is benefiting from a variety of new amenities that the organization didn’t have space for before relocating. This includes a conference room, a break room for staff, individual office space for administrative tasks, a space for children, and a lab and sterilization area for dental equipment. Having dedicated spaces for its work in a commercial condominium designed to its specifications is a significant achievement for ADC, having operated first out of a single room in a house in Whitewater, WI, before relocating in 2018 to a larger space in Madison that, while functional and welcoming to clients, wasn’t optimized for the organization’s needs. Devoting the space to patient care meant sacrificing meeting space for staff and the board of directors, for example, and facilitating tours for the individual donors and institutional supporters on which the ADC relies to sustain its work was out of the question.
“Previously, we could have three or four people at a time in the hallway of the clinic,” explains Krause. “Now we can have 20 to 30 people touring to see the work, and that’s going to help us show donors and larger corporate sponsors the positive impact of their support, which will help ADC continue to grow and help more patients.”
“When you can’t pay as much for your medical care, it often means you don’t get to go to a ‘nice’ facility, which is what everyone deserves regardless of their income. We want our patients to feel special when they come to our clinic, and to be treated differently than they’re used to being treated in a dentist’s office.”
In its new location, ADC turned to Plunkett Raysich Architects and Advanced Business Corporation to design and build out a full-service dental clinic that reflects the nonprofit’s commitment to high-quality, patient-centered care that advances health equity in the region by eliminating cost, fear, and lack of knowledge as barriers to dental care. This is reflected in the aesthetics of ADC’s new clinic, with bright colors and plenty of natural light.
“We’re working with a forgotten population that has worked hard their entire lives to pay rent and utility bills, while covering the cost of other essentials, and that hasn’t left them with a lot of money left over for everything else,” says Krause. “And when you can’t pay as much for your medical care, it often means you don’t get to go to a ‘nice’ facility, which is what everyone deserves regardless of their income. We want our patients to feel special when they come to our clinic, and to be treated differently than they’re used to being treated in a dentist’s office. It’s about dignity, and our new space definitely makes people feel appreciated when they walk through the doors.”
To facilitate the move to its new clinic, renovations to the leased space, and the purchase of new equipment, ADC leveraged a $900,000 loan from IFF that provided bridge funding as the organization completes a capital campaign. Additional sources of funding for the $1.49 million project included agency equity and grants from private foundations and the State of Wisconsin.
“As a nonprofit dental clinic, ADC doesn’t have the same level of access to financing through traditional lenders that a for-profit practice does, particularly since we were looking at leasing our facility instead of purchasing it,” says Voss. “We talked to a lot of people and went through an arduous process over the course of a year or so to find the right location for the organization and to secure the funding needed to make this happen, and having a lender willing to partner with ADC for tenant improvements and equipment purchases was essential.”