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MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH February 5, 2003 Board of Health Minutes Transcription completed by V. Anne Miles 3 February 5, 2003 D. Creation of Dentist Position in Health Department Since the beginning of the dental program more than 20 years ago, services of a dentist have been provided through a series of part -time dentists on a contractual basis. Overall direction of dental clinical services has been provided by a part -time faculty member from the UNC School of Dentistry under a contractual arrangement. For the past five years it has been increasingly difficult to maintain a stable complement of private contracting dentists to provide patient care and oversight of dental residents and students. The School of Dentistry has shared the cost of providing these dental services, however over the past two years that support has decreased with the increasing reductions to the School for part-time faculty support. The School has indicated that it can no longer provide the support to the Health Department for part-time faculty on an ongoing basis. Therefore, the department is requesting the creation of a 32-hour per week, Dentist II position for the department. The position would serve both children and adult patients in both clinical locations and serve as the clinical director of the dental program. In addition to this position, the department would maintain a contract with the School of Dentistry for a Pediatric Resident one day per week for 35 weeks and a contract with a pediatric dentist for 17 days (remaining 17 weeks) for pediatric care of very young children. In addition, a contract for a GPR dental resident 4 ½ days per week would also be maintained. The cost of a full-time position is approximately $104,000. Prorated to 32 hours per week, the salary would be $83,200 and benefits would be approximately $16,640 for a total cost for the 32-hour position of $99,840. In addition, there would be approximately a $1,000 increase to our liability insurance coverage. In order to maintain services at their current level, costs would be as follows: • 32 hour dentist position (with liability) $100,850 • Pediatric Resident (1 day week/35 weeks) 1,750 • Pediatric Attending Contract (1 day week/17 weeks) 6,800 • General Practice Resident (4 ½ days week) 46,000 The amounts available in the current fiscal year budget to support this position fall short by $19,584. It is anticipated that this position will be able to earn that amount of revenue through increased productivity as a result of fewer cancelled or reduced clinic hours that have been necessary for the past three years. The dental hygiene position has been vacant for more than a year without successful recruitment. An alternate scenario for redirecting funds is to reduce the dental hygienist position to a half-time clinical hygiene position which will make available approximately $20,000 to redirect toward the dentist position. This would still enable the hygienist to provide prophylaxis to adult clients one day each week in each location. Dr. Lee verified that this would be an adequate compensation level to attract a dentist. The dental school has advised that the best time to recruit dentists is during the early spring as residents begin graduating from the dental school. Therefore, it was recommended the department proceed with recruitment as soon as possible. Motion to approve the request to create a 32-hour per week dentist position for the health department and forward to Commissioners for approval and implementation as soon as possible was made by Alan Rimer, seconded by Martha Stucker, and carried