Tim Tebow invests in $5.5 million pediatric dental surgery center (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — An investment by Tim Tebow in a company founded by a local health tech entrepreneur has led to the creation of Lakeside Dental Surgery Center—a $5.5 million, 8,200 square foot ambulatory surgery center specializing in pediatric dental and oral health procedures.
The surgery center, located on Philips Highway, was developed by Lakeside Dental Management, a Jacksonville-based dental services organization led by brothers Andrew, Robert, and Patrick Weaver. It is co-founded by Jacksonville-based investor Ricky Caplin and is the first of its kind in Florida equipped with four state-of-the-art operating rooms and dedicated to dental treatment under general anesthesia.
Children and people with special healthcare needs are often unable to have oral health needs met in a traditional dental office for reasons running the gamut of needing multiple appointments for services to extreme levels of dental anxiety. Additionally, some dental patients with special healthcare needs are unable to remain safely still and compliant without safe sedation services leaving local children’s hospitals and emergency rooms to bear the burden.
“We just care about so many people with special needs having access to the right care,” Tebow told the Business Journal. “I was impacted when I was 15 years old by a boy in the Philippine’s jungle born with backwards feet. He was viewed as less than significant and a throw-away. He wasn’t a throw-away to God, so he couldn’t be one to me. Since then, a big part of my heart has fought for people with special needs.”
Lakeside President and co-founder Andrew Weaver shared the center’s core plan with a standing-room only crowd of attendees during the center’s grand opening last week.
“Lakeside will provide much needed dental treatment access to patients from every background and demographic, but the patients who will benefit the most from this facility are those with special healthcare needs like developmental delays,” said Weaver. “We are looking to help deal with the area’s long-running pediatric access-to-care dental health crisis and in the process of contracting with every major medical payor including statewide Medicaid health contractors.”
Florida is the top state for non-trauma related pediatric emergency room visits, according to the nonprofit CareQuest Institute for Oral Health.
That situation is set to become worse, with 14 million adults across the country — including 764,199 in Florida — expected to lose oral health coverage due to states redetermining the eligibility of their Medicaid populations.
“As people are removed from Medicaid and seek to secure private market coverage, there is no guarantee future coverage will include dental care,” CareQuest said in its report. Need a few words to describe the report? “This gap will likely have a greater impact on people of lower incomes and people of color.”
Easier access to dental treatment can have ripple effects, Weaver said, including making sure patients are treated before situations become worse, leading patients to seek care at an emergency room.
“You want an emergency room visit to be a true traumatic injury like a slip and fall or broken teeth,” said Weaver. “That is significant because it represents infection-related dental issues that wouldn’t exist at all with earlier access to treatment. Waiting lists for treatment can last for up to a year and patients might stay on antibiotics for months. When the child wakes up with a swollen face, they head straight to the ER.”