Tennessee Health Commissioner visits Bristol health, dental clinic
BRISTOL, Tenn. (WJHL) – Leaders from across the state toured the Healing Hands Health facility in Bristol, Tennessee, to learn how the facility provides services to patients who are underinsured or uninsured.
Helen Scott, Executive Director of Healing Hands Health, said it provides dental and medical healthcare to those around the area.
“We serve the whole region of Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee,” Scott said. “We help people who don’t have medical insurance, don’t have health insurance, dental insurance. So, we help the uninsured and then also the underinsured. So, we help people who have TennCare and Virginia Medicaid and adult dental.”
John Dunn, Commissioner of Health for the state of Tennessee, said he is proud the state can partner with Healing Hands through the state’s health Safety Net program.
“We certainly hope that the Safety Net program is going to continue and it’s been such an important funding source for Tennessee for dental and for medical services,” Dunn said. “Here at Healing Hands, we’ve also had the chance to provide some grant funding for behavioral health. So, this integrated model is really important for people that need multiple services. And it’s a beautiful facility.”
Healing Hands was excited to have Dr. Dunn at the clinic.
“This is Dr. Dunn’s first visit to our clinic, and we were so thrilled to welcome him and appreciate his time,” Scott said. “They have provided financial support through grants and through the State of Tennessee Safety Net funding, so it’s important for him to see what we do here. We receive funding for our some of our medical visits and some of our dental visits and he really enjoyed being here and seeing our clinic and finding out how generous our community has been to us.”
Healing hands also serves as a clinical education site for the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Dentistry. Ken Tilashalski, Dean of the UT Health Science Center College of Dentistry, said students are able to see the needs of the community in a more rural area.
“We want to introduce our students to various practice models across the state and to work with federally qualified health centers, super important and gets our students to an area of need,” Tilashalski said. “It opens our students eyes up to rural areas. One of the students we talked to this morning has already requested to do her next rotation here.”
Dunn also said he hopes to see more access to medical services in rural areas in the years to come.
“The current administration, under Governor Lee, has had a real emphasis on rural Tennessee and has provided opportunities for dental care, for advancing medical care through the Safety Net,” Dunn said. “So, it’s been great to see some of those seeds that were planted during the last eight years and seeing those bear fruit. And now we have some other opportunities with federal dollars for rural health that, we’re planting those seeds now as well and we hope to see more access for people in rural areas, people that are underinsured or uninsured.”
Along with state and partner funding, Healing Hands accepts donations from the community.