The only larger Bangor dental clinic accepting MaineCare has laid off just about fifty percent its employees as component of a restructuring hard work in the center of a countrywide labor scarcity.
Penobscot Group Dental Care laid off 31 employees two months ago though undergoing a reorganization in response to “changing demographics and other alterations in Maine and in dental care,” spokesperson Kate Carlisle claimed Monday. Laid-off personnel provided dentists, dental assistants, hygienists and professionals.
The restructuring was performed to “reimagine provider roles” and make it possible for the clinic to “look forward to staffing and do the job flows” permitting the clinic to carry on offering fundamental products and services and meet up with demand for adult dental providers just after Maine handed a legislation this summer expanding MaineCare to cover dental treatment for minimal-earnings adults, Carlisle reported.
It can make the clinic the only just one of its kind in Maine to announce key layoffs through the COVID-19 pandemic. The timing surprised some, with an industry team official declaring she did not know why the clinic would be laying vital staff members off now.
Laid-off workers had been getting welcomed again to utilize for newly described roles. The dental clinic, which serves patients as aspect of Penobscot Group Wellness Treatment, shown 20 suppliers on its website on Monday. Sixty-5 individuals worked at the clinic right before the layoffs, Carlisle reported.
In addition to the layoffs, the normal dentistry support was paused for four weeks to finish the restructuring energy, but wander-in, cleanliness and orthodontic appointments have been nonetheless being honored, Carlisle mentioned. The clinic will also close a longstanding dental residency system in June, she claimed.
Penobscot Local community Dental Clinic is a person of 4 low-price tag dental treatment providers in Penobscot County. It is the only in Bangor that accepts MaineCare, the state’s edition of Medicaid, the federal health and fitness care plan for very low-money people today, according to a Customers for Affordable Well being Care fact sheet.
Health and fitness treatment has been hit really hard by the pandemic worker shortage, with 15 per cent of Maine’s task losses between March 2020 and October 2021 attributed to the sector, according to Maine Division of Labor information.
Kathy Ridley, the interim government director of the Maine Dental Association, explained she did not understand why the clinic would lay off dentists, assistants and hygienists now, nor did she know what the restructuring entailed.
“I know that they are restructuring and I just do not know why,” Ridley claimed. “I really don’t have the understanding to report on that.”
Carlisle had no response to Ridley’s comment but reported “recruiting for dentists and dental assistants remains tough in rural states like Maine and is projected to get more difficult,” and that laying off the 31 workers would stay away from possessing to question them to retrain or adapt to new obligations or a new get the job done design and style and would steer clear of “negative final results.”
PCHC also employs Maine’s first dental therapist, a new class of dental expert made by the Legislature seven yrs in the past in element to simplicity recruiting issues. The clinic hopes to use extra therapists and the current alterations will aid the clinic “better embrace that product of treatment,” Carlisle said.
Correction: An previously version of this story had an incorrect reference to the number of laid-off workers. It is 31.
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