Summary
What do they do? Dentists on Wheels, EIN 84-2234407, delivers free East Bay dentistry at the St. Vincent de Paul clinic in Pittsburg. Its 2024 return records 179 extractions, 228 fillings, 14 root canals, 50 crowns/bridges and 41 dentures, totaling 512 procedures for 249 additional patients across 50 clinic days. More
Why this approach interests us
- Volunteer-supported dental treatment can relieve painful disease for patients who otherwise wait or cannot obtain care.
Our main reservations
- The favorable 10% world supplies 86.5% of signed expectation. Symptomatic share, duration and funding response are assumptions.
What do you get for your dollar?
Our signed prior-weighted model yields 0.06310 Bay QALYs per $10,000 whole gift, or $1,584,848 per 10. This is an exploratory estimate, not measured clinic QALYs. Inspect the model, assumptions and scenarios.
- bay whole-gift estimate
- $1,584,848 — Per 10 modeled QALYs; partial symptomatic-health scope.
- whole fy 2024 expense
- $103,749 — No program-only denominator or fees subtraction.
- reported annual treatment
- 249 patients /512 procedures — Procedure count is not unique people or distinct pain episodes.
- favorable-tail share
- 86.5% — Subjective scenarios, not calibrated probability.
1. What do they do?
Dentists on Wheels, EIN 84-2234407, delivers free East Bay dentistry at the St. Vincent de Paul clinic in Pittsburg. Its 2024 return records 179 extractions, 228 fillings, 14 root canals, 50 crowns/bridges and 41 dentures, totaling 512 procedures for 249 additional patients across 50 clinic days.
Pay whole historical organization cost
Include administration, staffing and all clinical services, even benefits not modeled.
Identify unique symptomatic patient episodes
Start with 249 patients, not 512 procedures; apply a uniqueness/episode-equivalence judgment and symptomatic share.
Relieve symptoms beyond realistic alternative care
Successful relief × utility gain × finite incremental duration until other care or need resolution. Not all fillings or dentures treat active pain.
Model donor response and harms
Funding response reflects staff/volunteer/stock constraints and reserves; subtract incremental procedural/access harms before Bay attribution.
Scope of this review. Only finite symptomatic relief is quantified. Prevention, chewing/denture function and other nonpain benefits remain unquantified, with costs retained. No lifetime, mortality, sepsis-prevention, income or screening-to-health credit. Partner infrastructure and volunteer opportunity costs are not free and not fully valued.
2. Monitoring and information sharing
249 reported additional patients, 50 clinic days
Original FY 2024 Form 990 Part III. 512 completed procedures reconcile to 179 extractions+ 228 fillings+ 14 root canals+ 50 crowns/bridges+ 41 dentures.
Our assessment. No untreated comparison, unique symptomatic episodes or measured utility. Do not mix newer secondary 2025 totals with 2024 cost.
Root-canal patients, not all charity dental patients
Prospective dental practice before/after pain study. Half reported severe pain before treatment; pain metrics improved after care.
Our assessment. No untreated counterfactual or QALY gain. Relieving dental pain is plausible, but magnitude/duration here remain judgments.
65 patients after third molar exclusions; 37 root canal initiations and 28 extractions
Swedish prospective nonrandomized root canal vs extraction cohort. One-year QALYs rounded .83 in each group; no significant intergroup difference. Health state values rose .80 to .87 for root canal and .79 to .85 for extraction among available observations.
Our assessment. Active comparator null is not dental care vs no care null. Before/after rises may reflect confounding, recovery and missing data; .06/.07 is not imported as causal utility. 27% root canals incomplete by one year underlines need to distinguish starts/completions.
3. Qualitative assessment
Volunteer-supported dental treatment can relieve painful disease for patients who otherwise wait or cannot obtain care.
Key reservations
- Whole cash/partial health scope is explicit; nonpain restorative benefits omitted, not zero.
- Reported patients are not causal additional patients and multiple procedures may address one episode.
- Pain utility and duration priors dominate evidence; no measured organization QALYs.
- Large unrestricted reserves and volunteers make cash response uncertain.
- Lottery-like access may reflect clinician availability, not a shortage of donations.
- Source 2025 filing lead not primary recovered; model deliberately synchronized to 2024 financial/activity year.
- Complete societal resource price unknown; headline does not value donated labor or partner capital fully.
Benefits not included in our estimate
- Lifetime tooth retention
- Dementia, mortality or sepsis aversion
- Prevention/screening QALYs without clinical followthrough
- Unquantified dentures/chewing and nonpain restorative function
- Employment, confidence and social value bonuses
4. What do you get for your dollar?
$1,584,848 per 10 Bay QALYs
This historical-rate diagnostic does not promise a current purchasable slot. Primary completed-treatment evidence anchors scale; reported additional patients is not causal additionality. Patient-year/dedup and clinically useful pain episodes remain uncertain.
A better life is our comparison unit of 10 additional quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), potentially spread across people. These are uncertain estimates, not measured returns or verified donation offers.
How we calculate the estimate
Net Bay symptomatic health: gift / whole expense ×249 reported patients × funding response × (unique-episode factor × symptomatic share × successful relief × utility × incremental years − harm per patient) × Bay share
0.06309754566911488 Bay QALYs per $10000
Model inputs and assumptions
- Whole 2024 expense
- 103749 (range: No selective clinical cost denominator). Original return reconciles expense. Service value 621424 is fee-based valuation, not an additional validated resource bill. High accounting; not complete resources.
- Reported patients × unique episode factor
- 249 × .9 (range: Factor .75–1). 249 additional patients is provider reported.512 procedures sum exactly but cannot become 512 people or pain relief episodes. Moderate reported count; low episode conversion.
- Symptomatic share × successful relief
- .6 × .85 (range: .3–.8 × .6–.95). Procedure mix confirms treatment, not baseline pain or resolved symptoms. Completion is not a separate multiplier because procedures are reported completed; relief success is distinct. Low.
- Utility gain while relief is incremental
- .05 (range: .025–.10). Analyst judgment. Observational EQ5D before/after changes do not identify untreated causal benefit. No pain-scale/OHIP conversion. Very low.
- Incremental symptomatic duration
- .25 year (range: .05–.5 year). Until alternative dental care, spontaneous resolution or need resolution. Not tooth lifespan, treatment durability or lifetime. No independently measured local duration. Expected incremental painful time averages across zero-benefit/prompt-alternative and delayed-care patients, not three extra months for every eligible person. Funding response is the separate budget/capacity response, not this same access comparison. Very low.
- New gift capacity response
- .3 (range: 0–.6). Lottery-like availability suggests constraint but not cash constraint; unrestricted assets 729582 and existing public/partner funding are funded baseline. Very low.
- Bay health share
- .98 (range: .95–1). East Bay clinic not proof every patient is Bay resident. Strong local footprint, unmeasured residence.
- Independent incremental harm Q per patient
- .0002 (range: 0–.003). Hypothetical postoperative pain/complications or access burden not already netted in utility; not observed adverse event rate. Very low.
$10,000 diagnostic cap; no linear $100,000 assurance
- funding_null: Not defined per 10; weight 0.2. Bay Q 0. Full coefficients/output retained in results.
- clinical_null: Not defined per 10; weight 0.15. Bay Q 0. Full coefficients/output retained in results.
- harm: Not defined per 10; weight 0.05. Bay Q-0.021168204030882223. Full coefficients/output retained in results.
- cautious: Not defined per 10; weight 0.25. Bay Q-0.0007552572795882371. Full coefficients/output retained in results.
- central: $2,559,314 per 10; weight 0.25. Bay Q 0.039072976607003436. Full coefficients/output retained in results.
- favorable: $183,229 per 10; weight 0.1. Bay Q 0.545765260388052. Full coefficients/output retained in results.
- full_funding: Full cash response. $693,702 per 10; Bay Q 0.1441541644377295.
- one_month: Cap incremental pain duration at one month. $9,302,550 per 10; Bay Q 0.010749741111962524.
- half_utility: Half all utility assumptions. $3,264,916 per 10; Bay Q 0.03062866396603823.
- half_symptomatic: Half symptomatic share. $3,264,916 per 10; Bay Q 0.03062866396603823.
- service_fee_value: Add reported service fee value; NOT validated societal price. $11,077,589 per 10; Bay Q 0.009027235246796283.
Uncertainty. Selected-world mass below $1 M/10:0.1; below $100 k/10:0. These are judgments, not empirical probabilities. Without favorable world:$10,562,116 per 10.
5. Funding and previous grants
HOLD a giving recommendation: current cash-created capacity and patient counterfactual outcomes remain unverified. The reported patient count is not a count of lives saved.
2024 revenue 196470 includes 30980 government grants. Cash 229364 plus savings 500218 equals 729582 net assets, all reported without donor restrictions at year end; zero liabilities. Surplus 92721 does not prove zero marginal need, but rejects an assumed emergency cash gap. Return records 59864 salary expense despite 0 employees; staffing classification unresolved, full cost retained. Partner rooms/equipment and 10685 reported volunteer hours imply substantial unpriced resources. Reported 621424 service fee value is not a rigorous opportunity cost measure and cannot simply be called donor leveraged QALYs.
This review does not establish a verified marginal funding offer or a complete history of grants.
We have not verified a suitable donation route for this reviewed activity. Confirm the legal recipient and intended allocation before donating.
6. Sources
- Organization and local clinic. Dentists on Wheels. Primary. Published: Undated; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
- Restorative services and limited availability. Dentists on Wheels. Primary. Published: Undated; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
- Original calendar 2024 Form 990. IRS via ProPublica. Primary. Published: Filed 2025-05-15; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
- A Legacy of Smiles. St. Vincent de Paul of Contra Costa County. Primary. Published: 2023-05-25; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
- Root canal versus extraction: prospective controlled economic cohort. Wigsten et al.. Primary. Published: 2023; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
- Comparing quality of life with root canal treatment or extraction. Wigsten et al.. Primary. Published: 2020; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
- Root canal therapy reduces multiple dimensions of pain. Law et al.. Primary. Published: 2014; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
Annual expenses: years and sources
Average annual expenses (three consecutive fiscal years): $82,476. Organization size is separate from the modeled cost-effectiveness of a donation.
Dentists On Wheels
Form 990/990-EZ reported whole-entity expenses; includes program, administration and fundraising costs, but excludes any costs netted against revenue.
Latest original return and prior-year comparative combined with earlier filing data.