Free LR dental-care event produces smiles all around
The sun was not quite up, but the folding chairs outside a free dental-care event in Little Rock were almost full.
At 6:40 a.m. Friday, close to 100 people had grabbed numbered white tickets and settled in to wait in the parking lot of Arkansas Family Dental for a free cleaning, filling or extraction at its “Dentistry from the Heart” event.
Saony Ung, 36, flashed a bright smile as she explained that she was first in line for a cleaning, having arrived at 4:45 a.m. The Little Rock nail salon worker said she hoped to be “in and out” for services.
Seated nearby, Angela Roark said she heard about the event when she visited the emergency room for tooth pain. The Cabot resident, 42, has Medicare coverage, but it doesn’t cover the dental work she needs.
“I’m told that I need a root canal, but I don’t know if they’ll do it today,” she said.
Now in its second year at the site, Friday’s event was part of a national nonprofit series that aims to close the gap for people who are struggling to pay for dental care.
The high cost of dental and orthodontic services, as well as the separation of dental coverage from health insurance, has increasingly troubled public health researchers and clinicians in the United States.
“Even the people that do have dental insurance, it’s not really like health insurance — it’s more of, like, a discount plan,” that can include reTwo
strictions like a $1,000 annual limit for services, said Dr. Samaria Mascagni, Arkansas Family Dental owner.
“They may have $15,000 of dental work that they need done.”
But untreated tooth and gum troubles, she added, end up causing other problems. As well as pain and nutrition issues, they are linked to chronic health conditions such as hypertension.
The four-state region that includes Arkansas had the nation’s second-highest rate of unmet dental-care needs because people couldn’t pay. Just over 5% of adults surveyed in the “West South Central” region reported unmet dental needs in the past 12 months, compared with a national average of 4.4%, according to 2014-to-2017 data compiled through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Heath Interview Survey.
The state also is among 14 that lack a traditional dental school — a common provider of low-cost services as new dentists train — and fewer than half of the region’s adults have private dental coverage.
That’s part of what’s moved dental professionals to act, offering clinics such as Friday’s and the annual Arkansas Mission of Mercy free dental-care event that travels around the state.
Dr. Terry Fiddler, the dentist who is the traveling event’s executive director, said the huge response to this type of function shows how much need there is in the area.
During its first year in 2007, Arkansas Mission of Mercy planned for 400-500 people and 1,200 showed up, he said. Recent years have seen participants who traveled from as far away as Minnesota.
Next year’s two-day event is scheduled for April in Conway, and Fiddler said it’s not unusual to see people coming back from year to year to manage thousands of dollars’ worth of needed work.
“I was one of those people that stood in line for free services growing up; we had nothing. So I can empathize,” he said. “I know what is to hurt from a toothache and not be able to afford to get it fixed.”
Mascagni said this week’s clinic focused on adults, because kids in Arkansas tend to have more coverage. Dentists, oral surgeons and hygienists from Jonesboro, Fayetteville and elsewhere signed up to volunteer.
“Our main goal is to get people out of pain, but there are people that have front teeth that just don’t look good, and they’re trying to get a job, and they need their front tooth fixed. So we do things like that, too,” she said.
The sky turned pink and dusky blue over the parking lot Friday morning as dance music pulsed from huge speakers. Organizers instructed people to hang on to their tickets to track their placement in line.
Stacy Douglass, 43, had arrived just after 7 a.m. and indicated a bottom tooth that had been “wiggling.” While the former Tyson worker has other teeth that bother her, the loose tooth was her first priority.
Laura Hicks, administrator at The Other Side group home in Wilburn, presided calmly over a group of about 20 men in blue T-shirts who chatted with one another, roughhoused or plopped down to sit on a curb.
The men are in treatment for alcohol and substance use issues, she explained. Some of them had “let themselves go” in terms of dental hygiene and were trying to get back on track.
“Most of these guys have insurance — but insurance doesn’t cover dental,” she said.
In the parking lot of a movie theater nearby, Drew Mason sat in a van that had driven about 40 people over from where they had parked to wait for care — “not bad for an hour,” he said.
Mason works as a treatment coordinator at the dental office, a role that coordinates with insurance and arranges care timelines to mitigate patient costs. This was his first year taking part in the event.
“Honestly, I think the best part of it is how grateful these people have seemed,” he said.