Partner Spotlight: Community Health Centers of Benton and Linn Counties Dental Services

Greetings from the Community Health Centers of Benton and Linn Counties Dental Services! Access to dental care is essential to good health, and we are here to help. We are a 13-member dental team that offers oral health care for children and adults in our area who are low income, live in rural communities, and have a more difficult time getting to a dental office.

We take all dental insurances, including OHP, IHN, private insurance, and have a sliding scale for cash-pay patients. Our fees are lower than other dentists to help all families get the oral health care they need. We have Spanish-speaking team members and access to Language Line and other interpretive services for many different languages.

Children’s Dental Services

The Johnson Dental Clinic

The Johnson Dental Clinic, located in the Boys and Girls Club of Corvallis, provides services for kids and pregnant women. In 2008, Dr. Kenneth Johnson opened the Johnson Dental Clinic with a vision to create a clinic that served the children in the community who did not have access to dental care due to lack of insurance coverage or financial strain. In 2010, The Johnson Dental Clinic joined us to expand services to every child aged 1-19. We take digital x-rays, do cleanings, deep cleanings, fillings, extractions, and make space maintainers for primary teeth lost too soon, all in a kid-friendly environment.

The Lincoln Health Center

We have one expanded practice dental hygienist (EPDH) at the Lincoln Health Center weekly. We do assessments fluoride varnish, silver diamine fluoride, and make recommendations for more dental work for the kids who are patients there.

School-based prevention services

Our dental staff offers annual screenings, assessments, fluoride varnish, and sealants for children at Benton and Linn County schools. We bring portable equipment and set it up in various rooms such as libraries, computer rooms, teacher lounges, nurse’s office, conference rooms, the gym, on stages, in unused classrooms, and even the maintenance room! These annual visits help prevent cavities and tooth decay. Without regular dental care, children are more likely to have pain, trouble concentrating, and other medical issues that make learning difficult.

Adult Dental Services

We provide preventive and restorative dental services for adults in many locations throughout Benton and Linn Counites. We are at:

• The River Center in Lebanon
• The Lebanon Veterans Home
• The Johnson Dental Clinic
• The Health Services Bldg. in Corvallis

Our adult clinic in Corvallis, The Lebanon Veterans Home, and the River Center include the following services for adults: cleanings and deep cleanings, exams, fillings, extractions, crowns, dentures, and partial dentures, some root canals, and digital x-rays.

We work with Samaritan Health to see heart patients who need to have a dental exam and any treatment performed before they have heart surgery.

We are helping our Veterans at the Lebanon Veterans Home with monthly visits from our dental hygienist and dentist. We bring portable equipment and take over the hair salon, but hopefully, soon, we will have our own room with a dental chair for our veterans to receive their dental care.

Last summer, we were at vaccination clinics, health fairs, and low-income apartment buildings as part of our many outreach activities. In the past, pre-pandemic times, we also provided screenings, assessments, and preventative services at long-term care facilities and where people came for WIC. We also offer the oral health education portion of training of community health workers.

We bring our services and information for dental care resources wherever we can so patients can get care where they are. Our goal is to help everyone get the oral care they need.

By: Kyle Isaacs, RDHEP, BHS, Community Health Centers of Benton & Linn County