A sign on the door of Adirondack Health’s dental facility on Barn Road in Lake Placid notifies patients that operations at the office have been suspended indefinitely. Dental patients are directed to contact Adirondack Health for dental records. (Enterprise photo — Lauren Yates)

LAKE PLACID — Adirondack Health’s dental facility on Barn Road in Lake Placid has closed “indefinitely,” according to Adirondack Health Director of Communications Matt Scollin.

Scollin said the dental facility had to close last week after staff resignations and “key staff constraints.” It’s unclear which employees resigned from their positions at the dental facility, however. Scollin was out of the office on Thursday and did not answer additional questions about the dental facility’s closure.

Former patients of the dental facility who need to transfer their existing medical records can contact Adirondack Health’s Health Information Management department at 518-897-2520 or visit adirondackhealth.org/medical-records.

The closure of the dental care facility comes as the state Department of Health is still in the process of reviewing Adirondack Health’s proposed closure plan for the office, as well as the hospital’s proposed closure plan for its emergency room in Lake Placid.

The health network announced that it submitted a closure plan for its ER, located at the Adirondack Medical Center campus on Old Military Road in Lake Placid, to the state DOH this past October. This past February, Adirondack Health revealed that it also submitted a closure plan for its dental facility on Barn Road.

The hospital sent letters to the dental care facility’s approximately 2,000 patients in late February and early March notifying them of the potential closure. In an email to the Enterprise, Scollin cited financial “stressors” and staffing issues as Adirondack Health’s reasons for seeking authorization to close the office, saying that the dental practice typically adds $350,000 to health network deficits each year. Scollin placed the hospital’s 2022 deficits at around $10 million this past October. The hospital has been searching for a new dental hygienist to work at the facility for the last three years.

Though the dental facility was expected to close by May 1, the state DOH’s continued review of the office’s proposed closure plan kept operations up — largely on a day-to-day basis. The hospital can’t implement its proposed closure plans for its facilities without first receiving written approval from the state DOH, according to the department’s guidelines on closure plans.