Two local nonprofit health care providers benefit the community in many ways.

News this week from a couple of nonprofit health care providers in Lawrence points out how much those services benefit not only their patients but the community as a whole.

Health Care Access and the Douglas County Dental Clinic are working together to provide vital health care services to uninsured people in the county. The work of the nonprofit agencies not only improves the health of those receiving services, it also reduces pressure on other health care providers who must absorb the cost of caring for patients who can’t afford to pay.

A study released Tuesday indicated that Health Care Access is saving Lawrence Memorial Hospital at least $1 million a year by caring for people who otherwise would seek care at the LMH emergency room. The benefits of that trend are many.

Treatment provided by Health Care Access eliminates the need for hospital care in a couple of ways. Many uninsured patients go to the emergency room for nonemergency care that could be provided at a doctor’s office. The routine care provided by Health Care Access can eliminate those visits as well as hospitalizations that result when uninsured people allow health problems to go untreated until they become more serious.

It’s part of the LMH mission to provide care to patients regardless of their ability to pay, but the city-owned hospital must cover those costs somehow. The cost of providing indigent care gets added onto the cost of doing business and, therefore, the bills paid by all other patients or their insurance companies.

Another local agency providing an important service is the Douglas County Dental Clinic, which was able to hire its own dentist in July and start providing full-time service to people needing dental care. Before that, patients were referred to private dentists willing to provide that care free of charge.

Because those dentists are busy, they were only able to deal with the most severe cases. Again, many patients ended up in the emergency room with dental problems. Because the nonprofit dental clinic only hired its dentist in July, it hasn’t had a great impact on the number of dental patients coming to the LMH emergency room, but in years to come, it seems likely it will be able to whittle away at the more than 200 patients a year who come to LMH with dental problems.

With the full-time dentist the clinic was able to serve 210 patients last month, compared to eight patients in October 2001. Access to the dental clinic also could prevent many dental problems that could turn into more serious illnesses for uninsured patients.

These two agencies just make sense. With the support of contributors, they provide needed health care services in a way that benefits the entire community. Douglas County is fortunate to have these two agencies and the individuals who generously provide financial support for their work.