Summary
What do they do? Health Mobile (EIN 31-1658149) reports seven mobile medical/dental units and a leased facility serving primarily uninsured low-income children throughout California. A current funder confirms San Jose dental treatment. This is not the similarly named Salinas Valley or other mobile-health programs. More
Why this approach interests us
- Mobile treatment can shorten painful waits for patients who cannot obtain equivalent care promptly.
Our main reservations
- The favorable 10% world contributes 96.4% of signed expected benefit. Targets are not completions, and whole-org Bay share is unknown.
What do you get for your dollar?
The signed prior-weighted estimate is $2,041,966 per 10 Bay QALYs (0.048972 per $10,000 gift). It is a judgment-led exploratory estimate, not measured clinic QALYs. Inspect the model, assumptions and scenarios.
- bay whole-gift estimate
- $2,041,966 — Per 10 modeled QALYs; partial symptomatic-health scope.
- whole expense
- $363,688 — FY ending June 2025, verified original return.
- annual completed patients
- Unknown — 300/600/1200 whole-org people priors—not observed treatment totals.
- gift scope
- Up to $10,000 — No linear $100,000 scaling assurance.
1. What do they do?
Health Mobile (EIN 31-1658149) reports seven mobile medical/dental units and a leased facility serving primarily uninsured low-income children throughout California. A current funder confirms San Jose dental treatment. This is not the similarly named Salinas Valley or other mobile-health programs.
Retain whole cost
All medical, dental, education, administration and facility costs remain in denominator.
Separate people from completed treatment
Annual person prior × uniqueness × completed-restorative share × symptomatic share.
Estimate finite health beyond alternative care
Successful relief × utility × expected incremental painful time.
Apply funding response, harms and Bay attribution
No rescue, mortality or lifetime credit. Publicly funded baseline is not automatically new donor impact.
Scope of this review. Only finite symptomatic dental health is quantified. Primary medical care, nonpain dentistry, prevention, education, chewing and long-term tooth retention remain unquantified, with their costs retained. Complete societal resource cost is unknown: donated labor, partner support and capital may be absent from accounting.
2. Monitoring and information sharing
Whole legal organization, FY ending June 2025
Original Form 990 and Schedule O. Expense and revenue reconcile; liability correction explains net asset movement. No actual annual patients or completed procedures provided.
Our assessment. No cost-per-treatment can be called observed. Accounting liabilities and geography require whole-org interpretation.
District proposed dental program, not entire organization
Public funder application summary, June 2025. 400 people/1500 services annual targets; 600 improved people inconsistent with 400 served; 90% no-pain is a target. Dual funding recommendation 110000; not a new private gap.
Our assessment. No measured pain-free rate, completion count or causal additionality. May 2026 search extraction repeats 400/1500 and corrects improved people to 400, but full newer packet was inaccessible and no actual outcome inferred.
San Jose low-income and unhoused patients
Current primary funder description. Fillings, root canals and extractions are real service offerings.
Our assessment. Does not establish completed annual mix or additional outcomes versus public/private alternatives.
65 adults; 37 root canal starts, 28 extractions
Prospective nonrandomized controlled Swedish dental cohort. No significant intergroup QALY difference; approximately .83 QALYs each over one year. Before/after utility improvements are not untreated causal effects.
Our assessment. Study compares two treatments, not care versus no care. No direct .05 utility import; child-heavy and mobile-clinic transfer is especially uncertain.
Medi-Cal members, not measured Health Mobile patient insurance mix
DHCS April 2026 benefit notice. Under 19 members retain full dental benefits; some adults transition to emergency-only coverage.
Our assessment. Neither nominal coverage nor uninsured label establishes actual timely alternative care; no change to locked coefficients.
3. Qualitative assessment
Mobile treatment can shorten painful waits for patients who cannot obtain equivalent care promptly.
Key reservations
- No observed completed-treatment denominator: throughput and completion assumptions are independent weak links.
- Public targets are not actuals, and metrics-met percentages do not reveal completed clinical episodes.
- Cash shortage, staff bottlenecks and debt servicing are not interchangeable.
- Statewide organization: do not assign 100% Bay solely from headquarters or current spotlight.
- FY 2025 costs may understate or overstate FY 2026/27 service costs.
- Utility, duration, relief and harm are analyst priors, not measured Health Mobile effects.
- Societal resources and unquantified medical/preventive benefits remain outside the numeric health estimate.
- DHCS confirms under 19 Medi-Cal members retain full dental benefits despite July 2026 restrictions for some adults. Child-heavy service is not automatically without covered alternatives; eligibility and timely access still vary.
Benefits not included in our estimate
- Lifetime tooth retention
- Mortality or sepsis prevention
- Screening and education converted directly to QALYs
- Unmeasured primary medical health gains
- Employment or caregiver bonuses
4. What do you get for your dollar?
$2,041,966 per 10 Bay QALYs
A whole-cost/partial-health diagnostic, not a verified offer to purchase extra treatments. FY 2025 costs and current scale priors are not synchronized observed cost-effectiveness data.
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
Signed incremental Bay health: gift / whole expense × annual people prior × funding × (unique × completed restorative share × symptomatic share × relief × utility × incremental years − harm/person) × Bay share
0.048972419353951725 Bay QALYs per $10000
Model inputs and assumptions
- Whole historical organization expense
- 363688 (range: FY 2024 alternative 476449). Original FY ending June 2025 return, all functions retained. Not complete donated-resource cost. High accounting; low current marginal relevance.
- Annual service-recipient equivalents before residual dedup
- 600 prior (range: 300–1200). Unknown actual annual whole-org volume. These are not observed unique annual people; the unique factor applies residual person/episode dedup. Central extrapolates modestly beyond one district target; neither 400 target nor 1500 services are measured completed treatment. Very low.
- Unique person/episode adjustment
- .9 (range: .75–1). Annual throughput is service-recipient equivalents before this residual dedup factor, not observed unique people. No procedure-to-person equivalence. Very low.
- Completed restorative treatment share
- .6 (range: .4–.8). Removes screening, education, cleaning-only visits and incomplete courses. Service menu is not completed-case mix. Very low.
- Symptomatic share among completed episodes
- .5 (range: .3–.7). Nonpain restorative/preventive care is not credited with immediate pain relief. Very low.
- Successful symptomatic relief
- .85 (range: .6–.95). Provider 90% pain-free target is not evidence of causal relief or clinic quality; prior remains judgment. Very low.
- Incremental utility while pain is relieved
- .05 (range: .025–.10). Analyst judgment, not direct EQ5D/OHIP/pain-scale conversion. Adult active-comparator study does not establish effect in children. Very low.
- Expected incremental painful time
- .25 year (range: .05–.5 year). Average time before equivalent alternative care or need resolution, including zero/prompt-alternative cases. Not tooth lifespan, nor a promise of three extra months for every patient. Very low.
- Whole-gift capacity response
- .3 (range: 0–.6). Separate budget/capacity response. Public contracts, paid staff, van and clinic capacity can make a gift displace baseline or pay liabilities. No verified priced expansion. Very low.
- Bay share of incremental health
- .7 (range: .4–.9). Statewide/Northern California service scope. San Jose and district locations confirm some Bay activity, not whole-org residence mix. Low.
- Harm QALY per additional person
- .0002 (range: 0–.003). Independent hypothetical postoperative complications/access burdens not already netted in utility. No observed adverse-event rate. Very low.
Small whole-gift diagnostic; no linear scale-up guarantee
- funding_null: Not defined per 10; weight 0.2. Bay Q 0; all coefficients and signed output saved.
- clinical_null: Not defined per 10; weight 0.15. Bay Q 0; all coefficients and signed output saved.
- harm: Not defined per 10; weight 0.05. Bay Q-0.010393524119575018; all coefficients and signed output saved.
- cautious: Not defined per 10; weight 0.25. Bay Q-0.00014270473592749828; all coefficients and signed output saved.
- central: $10,815,598 per 10; weight 0.25. Bay Q 0.00924590583137194; all coefficients and signed output saved.
- favorable: $211,791 per 10; weight 0.1. Bay Q 0.47216295286069365; all coefficients and signed output saved.
- half_people: Half all annual people priors. $4,083,931 per 10; Bay Q 0.024486209676975863.
- one_month: Cap incremental duration at one month. $12,786,808 per 10; Bay Q 0.007820559793009392.
- half_utility: Half utility priors. $4,161,456 per 10; Bay Q 0.024030049451727854.
- bay40: All-world Bay share 40%. $4,550,992 per 10; Bay Q 0.0219732298013682.
- fy2024_cost: Use prior-year whole expense 476449. $2,675,075 per 10; Bay Q 0.03738213586343974.
- resources_double: Double expense: hypothetical unpriced resources, not measured. $4,083,931 per 10; Bay Q 0.024486209676975863.
- full_funding: Full cash response in every world. $1,105,294 per 10; Bay Q 0.09047366836409229.
Uncertainty. Subjective world mass below $1 M/10:0.1; below $100 k/10:0. Not calibrated probabilities. Excluding and renormalizing favorable world:$51,249,226 per 10. Scenario coefficients and weights were saved before first evaluation; no threshold tuning.
5. Funding and previous grants
HOLD a giving recommendation: actual annual treatment completion, local counterfactual access and cash-created capacity are unverified.
Original FY 2025 revenue 343009 includes 69480 government grants and 165229 program revenue; full expense 363688 is not reduced by either. Staff costs 201343 and 7 employees contradict an assumed all-volunteer model. Cash 64992, assets 282070, liabilities 273183, net assets 8887. Net assets moved from −220434 through −20679 operating result plus 250000 prior-period correction; Schedule O calls this correction of an overstated 2024 liability, not fresh cash. All expense is classified as program by filer; zero reported functional overhead does not justify reducing whole cost. Current restricted funds, contract renewal conditions, donated resources and unit utilization remain unknown.
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
- Original FY ending June 2025 Form 990. IRS via ProPublica. Primary. Published: 2025-12-26; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
- Original FY 2025 Schedule O. IRS via ProPublica. Primary. Published: 2025-12-26; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
- Current partner spotlight. El Camino Health. Primary. Published: 2026-02-19; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
- June 17 2025 board packet, PDF pages 242–243 and 73. El Camino Healthcare District. Primary. Published: 2025-06-17; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
- Mobile dental provider list. Santa Clara County. Primary. Published: 2024-08-01; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
- Controlled prospective root canal versus extraction cohort. Wigsten et al.. Primary. Published: 2023-06-29; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
- Medi-Cal dental benefit changes. California DHCS. Primary. Published: 2026-04-27; retrieved: 2026-09-11.
Annual expenses: years and sources
Average annual expenses (three consecutive fiscal years): $439,505. Organization size is separate from the modeled cost-effectiveness of a donation.
Health Mobile
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.