ReachOut Healthcare America (RHA) is a dental management services company with its headquarters in Farmington Hills,

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

. It is a part of the

private equity Private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public; instead it is offered to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the co ...

portfolio of

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in 42 countries and more than 80,000 employees, the firm's clients in ...

. The company operates in 22 U.S. states. In 2011 the company coordinated dental care at 8,700 schools and coordinated the processing of 488,000 children in those schools. As of May 2012 the company has coordinated the processing of 1.5 million patients. ReachOut seeks to coordinate treatment for underserved children on

Medicaid Medicaid is a government program in the United States that provides health insurance for adults and children with limited income and resources. The program is partially funded and primarily managed by U.S. state, state governments, which also h ...

.Freedberg, Sydney P.
Dental Abuse Seen Driven by Private Equity Investments
" ''

Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician a ...

''. May 17, 2012. Retrieved on September 12, 2012. The company has a mobile dentistry coordination program for children in U.S. schools, and it provides the coordination of services under the name "Big Smiles."Alltucker, Ken.
Mobile dental clinics drawing scrutiny
" ''

The Arizona Republic ''The Arizona Republic'' is an American daily newspaper published in Phoenix. Circulated throughout Arizona, it is the state's largest newspaper. Since 2000, it has been owned by the Gannett newspaper chain. History Early years The newspap ...

''. August 18, 2012. Retrieved on September 12, 2012. It also offers a coordination program for U.S. soldiers. The company previously had a coordination program for senior and disabled residents of nursing homes. In December 2011 the company divested its nursing home program. Chris Alltucker of ''

'' said that critics argued that the Big Smiles' business model is designed to collect as much money from Medicaid as possible on behalf of dentists performing numerous, and sometimes unnecessary procedures. ReachOut Healthcare America of Phoenix says it performs a valuable service, providing access to dental care for underserved children. The company also stated that it does not employ any dentists, or make patient care decisions for the mobile dentists that visit the schools.INSIDE EDITION Investigates Mobile Dentistry
" ''

Inside Edition ''Inside Edition'' is an American tabloid television program that is distributed in Broadcast syndication, first-run syndication by CBS Media Ventures. Having premiered on January 9, 1989, it is the longest-running syndicated-newsmagazine progr ...

''. September 11, 2012. Retrieved on September 12, 2012.

History

Michael Howell and Daniel Goldsmith, the founders, established ReachOut in 1997 as a company that coordinated dental services to nursing home patients in

. The company began coordinating services to schools. The company had also coordinated services to foster programs, group homes, homeless shelters, and mental health facilities by late 2003. In 2005 the company began coordinating services to five school districts in

St. Louis County, Missouri St. Louis County is located in eastern Missouri. It is bounded by the City of St. Louis and the Mississippi River to the east, the Missouri River to the north, and the Meramec River to the south. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1, ...

.Mueller, Michelle B
Dental work will be offered in some schools ReachOut Healthcare creates the program especially for those without insurance.
''

St. Louis Post-Dispatch The ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' is a regional newspaper based in St. Louis, Missouri, serving the St. Louis metropolitan area. It is the largest daily newspaper in the metropolitan area by circulation, surpassing the '' Belleville News-Democra ...

''. June 9, 2005. North Post, Five Star Lift Edition, p. 1. Retrieved on September 24, 2012.
Alternate link
at

Highbeam HighBeam Research was a paid search engine and full text online archive owned by Gale, a subsidiary of Cengage, for thousands of newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines, and encyclopedias in English. It was headquarte ...

Sentinel Capital Partners Sentinel Capital Partners, L.L.C. is an American Private equity firm, private-equity firm focusing on mid-market companies. The company is headquartered in New York City and was founded in 1994 by David Lobel and John McCormack after working toge ...

provided the company with private equity funding in November 2007. ReachOut increased its patient base by 500% and acquired two rival companies. The company later became a holding of

Morgan Stanley Private Equities Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in 42 countries and more than 80,000 employees, the firm's clients in ...

. In October 2011 a

Camp Verde, Arizona Camp Verde (; Western Apache: Gambúdih) is a town in Yavapai County, Arizona, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population of the town is 10,873. Every summer, the downtown area of Camp Verde is the site of the annual Corn Fest; hel ...

boy treated by a dentist affiliated with ReachOut complained of pain. His mother, Stacey Gagnon, accused the dentist of performing dental procedures on the boy without the parents' permission. Darren and Stacey Gagnon, the parents of the boy, filed a lawsuit against the individual dentist and the ReachOut company. In November 2011, Dan Brown, then the superintendent of the Camp Verde Unified School District, signed a "

cease and desist A cease and desist letter is a document sent by one party, often a business, to warn another party that they believe the other party is committing an unlawful act, such as copyright infringement, and that they will take legal action if the oth ...

" letter preventing ReachOut from operating in the school district facilities. The company previously had a partnership with the

Clark County School District The Clark County School District (CCSD) is the public school district serving Clark County in the U.S. state of Nevada. It is the largest school district in Nevada and the fifth-largest school district in the United States with 304,565 enro ...

, the largest school district in the state of

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

. In December 2011 the district ended its partnership with ReachOut. Ken Alltucker of the ''

Arizona Republic ''The Arizona Republic'' is an American daily newspaper published in Phoenix. Circulated throughout Arizona, it is the state's largest newspaper. Since 2000, it has been owned by the Gannett newspaper chain. History Early years The newspap ...

'' said that several parents complained that ReachOut had performed significant dental procedures such as fillings and crowns without properly notifying the parents, but that "the driving force behind the decision was concern that students did not get proper emergency or after-hours care because ReachOut dentists visited just twice a year." Amanda Fulkerson, a district spokesperson, said that many children treated by ReachOut had suffered from pain after the procedures, and many school nurses complained about the scenarios. Fulkerson said " ey (ReachOut) were going well beyond what we consider preventive care. It was our (school administration's) belief you should be in a proper dental setting, and the board agreed. We terminated the contract." In response, a mobile dentist who worked with ReachOut, Derryl Brian, said that the dentists under ReachOut had, since 2006, treated 80,000 children, and that there was a high rate of satisfaction. Several school districts in Arizona, as of August 2012, have continued to use ReachOut. ReachOut provided care for over 2,000 students of the Peoria Unified School District in

Greater Phoenix The Phoenix metropolitan area, also known as the Valley of the Sun, the Salt River Valley, metro Phoenix, or The Valley, is the largest metropolitan statistical area in the Southwestern United States, with its largest principal city being the ...

. ReachOut serviced twenty Peoria USD schools that have high percentages of low income students. The ReachOut website includes testimonials from a school nurse in

Tucson, Arizona Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...

and an elementary school principal of the

Deer Valley Unified School District Deer Valley Unified School District #97 (DVUSD) is a Pre-K–12 school district, headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, United States. DVUSD is the fifth largest school district in the state of Arizona, serving areas of Phoenix, Glendale, Peoria, ...

in Greater Phoenix. In the two years until August 2012, the

Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

(AHCCCS) paid ReachOut's affiliated dental practice $12.5 million. The CEO of ReachOut Healthcare America, Chris Bird, said that during that time period, in Arizona the in-school dentists under Dr. Ralph Green treated over 100,000 children, with an average of 15 children per day per school visit. Bird said that the majority of the services included preventative dentistry, including examinations, cleanings, sealants, and fluoride treatment; and fillings. Bird said that only 1.3% of the procedures in the dental practices associated with ReachOut involve crowns and root canals.CEO of ReachOut Healthcare America Responds to ''The Arizona Republic''
" ReachOut Healthcare America. Retrieved on September 24, 2012. In July 2013

Chuck Grassley Charles Ernest Grassley (born September 17, 1933) is an American politician serving as the president pro tempore of the United States Senate since 2025, a role he also held from 2019 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Re ...

and

Max Baucus Maxwell Sieben Baucus ( Enke; born December 11, 1941) is an American politician who served as a United States senator from Montana from 1978 to 2014. A member of the Democratic Party, he was a U.S. senator for over 35 years, making him the long ...

of the

U.S. Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the ...

released a report on corporate dental care; it discusses allegations against ReachOut Healthcare America and states that "those practices were not necessarily widespread."Alltucker, Ken.
Senate probe targets dentists with Phoenix ties
" ''

''. Thursday July 25, 2013. Retrieved on July 26, 2013. It concluded that "The reported problems of unnecessary procedures, lack of parental consent and patient abuse appear to be the result of ReachOut having management agreements with several unscrupulous dentists. Given the administrative nature of their arrangement, ReachOut lacks ability to police such bad actors." It also stated that Reachout "had no standards for dentists with whom they contract to obtain parental consent for treatment."

References

{{reflist

External links

ReachOut Healthcare America

Big Smiles DentalAlternate link
- operated by ReachOut
Reach Out Healthcare America
" Moriarty Leyendecker (law firm involved in an ongoing lawsuit against ReachOut) * Collins, Katie.
Big Smiles dentists visits Thomson Primary School
" '' Brush News-Tribune''. April 17, 2012. Dental companies of the United States Companies based in Phoenix, Arizona 1997 establishments in Michigan American companies established in 1997 Health care companies based in Arizona

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links