Illinois Primary Health Care Association
1999 Wabash Ave.
Springfield, IL
United States
Illinois Primary Health Care Association (IPHCA) is the only association of community health centers in Illinois, delivering tools, training, and support to help CHCs and their patients thrive.
A longtime CareQuest Institute for Oral Health grantee, IPHCA seeks to support the expanded and enhanced delivery of oral health care services in Illinois by developing a strong policy plan focusing on issues impacting oral health services to underserved populations. An oral health policy strategic plan will inform their work over the next few years, convening a workgroup of stakeholders to guide the association (including various health center professionals from CEOs to dental directors to administrative staff). The strategic plan will include four pillars: promoting the value of CHCs, improved funding/reimbursement, growing and strengthening the workforce, and enhancing health center scope of service. IPHCA plans to investigate dental therapy, Medicaid reimbursement, and teledentistry/mobile services.
Integration of oral health services into primary care has been an issue IPHCA has worked with CareQuest Institute on in the past. IPHCA proposes a next step to this work through improving integration of oral health with behavioral health services. To do this, IPHCA will host a learning collaborative for oral health and behavioral health teams, which will include educational sessions focused on treatment collaboration for patients with substance use disorders, maternal health, and interprofessional development and communication between teams. IPHCA plans to release a request for proposal to all IL CHCs to apply for the chance to be a part of the learning collaborative and develop an equitable integration program between oral health and behavioral health, with budget built in to support up to five CHCs. Successes and lessons learned will be shared with other CHCs after this initial pilot group is completed.
IPHCA will also continue to support the oral health safety net in Illinois by hosting another Illinois Oral Health Conference. This conference allows the ability to upskill the safety net workforce, highlight new models of care delivery, and focus on hot topics. One plan for this year is to continue to develop the Dental Assistant workforce in Illinois through continuing education, allowing them to be better positioned to provide care to their patients.
This request is for $100,000, which is less than 1% of the organization’s overall budget. The grant funds will support staff time, behavioral health integration stipends for participating pilot clinics (up to five), and various training materials/learning collaborative development.