ROGERS — Pain drives the need for dental care, especially for the uninsured.
Debbie Rambo, executive director of Samaritan Community Center, hopes to alleviate pain by adding staff to what was an all-volunteer operation and new dentistry hours at the Samaritan Health Clinic.
At A Glance
Two-Day Clinic
The Arkansas Mission of Mercy two-day clinic will be held May 16-17 at the Northwest Arkansas Convention Center in Springdale. Doors open at 6 a.m. both mornings. Mission of Mercy provides free dental care on a first-come, first-served basis using volunteer dentists. Free clinics rotate locations throughout the state. The clinic was last held in Springdale in 2009.
Source: Staff Report
A patient with an infected wisdom tooth visited the clinic last week to have it pulled. The man told Jill Self-Pike, the clinic’s resident dentist, his wife found him passed out in the floor from the pain and drove him to the emergency room.
Antibiotics prescribed in the emergency room will help, but only temporarily, Self-Pike said.
“The infection goes down, but the bad teeth are still in there,” she said.
Relief from dental pain is still out of reach for many in Northwest Arkansas.
Self-Pike started in January as resident dentist at Samaritan Health Clinic, which will be open three days a week. The evening clinic hours with volunteer dentists will stay, but Self-Pike said regular, daytime hours will allow the staff to fix problem teeth instead of pulling them after the pain gets too bad.
Recent corporate and family donations of $216,365 will pay for the clinic expansion for three years.
The clinic at 1211 W. Hudson Road serves the disabled, the unemployed, the elderly, young adults who can’t afford dental insurance or care and the working poor, Self-Pike and Rambo said.
“It’s just the people who fall through the cracks,” Self-Pike said.
People need a place to live, food on the table and gasoline in the car so they can get to work, said Amy Gephart, Samaritan clinic coordinator.
“Teeth just don’t fall into the top priority,” Gephart said. “That’s why it’s put off for so long.”
Dental health affects overall health, and a broken smile can affect employment, Rambo said.
“We see clients who will literally come in with their hand over their mouth,” she said.
Rambo said she would like to see the operation expand from two rooms and add staff and equipment. About 85 percent of the 674 patients who came through the clinic in 2013 had teeth pulled. Clients call the first Monday of the month to make appointments at the free clinic. A waiting list will be generated from those clients for fillings and checkups.
The clinic only takes adult patients who have no dental insurance. Because dental care isn't bundled with most insurance, it can be seen as a luxury, even for the lower-middle class, Rambo said.
“It’s awful, and it’s heartbreaking to not have the means to go to the dentist and get help,” Self-Pike said.
Health insurance enrollment may be climbing in Arkansas, but that doesn’t necessarily mean families have dental insurance, said Anna Strong, health policy director at Arkansas Advocates for Families and Children.
The Affordable Health Care Act opens the door to more affordable plans and requires dental care be built into insurance for children, but the law doesn't require adults to purchase dental insurance, nor does it offer subsidies for dental health.
Many children are covered through ARKids, but not all. Five years of residency gives immigrant families coverage, but migrant families, including the Marshallese population, do not qualify for ARKids even though they are legal residents of the state. They can still purchase insurance on a sliding scale, but there is no reimbursement for migrant families.
Other programs try to fill in the gap where insurance ends.
The Ronald McDonald Care Mobile Clinic served 800 children at 20 schools in Benton and Washington last year, said Jennifer Dean, program manager. The mobile clinic only serves children who have no dental insurance and visits schools with large populations of children who qualify for free and reduced-cost lunches, a common indicator of poverty.
Altrusa International of Rogers has paid for dental work for children in need for years, said Barb Smith, intake coordinator for the dental program. The group added an education effort and last year coordinated a screening for 250 prekindergarteners through the Rogers School District.
School nurses refer the children to the Altrusa program. The number of referrals has dropped in the last couple of years, some of it after Community Clinic opened a dental clinic in Rogers, Smith said.
“A lot of the children we do assist, they need a lot of work,” Smith said.
One case this year needed thousands of dollars of work in extractions, crowns and fillings.
Dentistry is expensive, said Tyler Clark, community development manager at Community Clinic. Community Clinic operates on a sliding scale fee based on income. Dentists see about 250 patients a week at the Rogers location and another 400 a week in Springdale. Five exam rooms were added to the Springdale clinic last year, Clark said.
“There’s a tremendous need for medical and dental care all over Northwest Arkansas,” he said.
Sometimes people put off dental care and sometimes it's the lack of insurance or the money, said Drew Raney, Arkansas Mission of Mercy state coordinator. Some people just think they will need dentures at 30 because that's all they know, he said.
“Oral health is cultural,” Raney said.
Arkansas Mission of Mercy, sponsored by the Arkansas State Dental Association, serves about 2,000 people annually through a free clinic. This year the all-volunteer clinic will travel to Springdale.
Part of the Mission of Mercy is about education. While volunteer dentists, dental assistants and hygienists are working on a damaged tooth, they have a captive audience, Raney said. An abscessed tooth can make basic dental care more important to someone who is struggling.
“Then it becomes a priority,” he said.