Free Dental Day 2016

Totally not a joke —yes! a free dental day

We want everyone to have better teeth but let’s be honest… dental care is the last thing on anyone’s mind or budget, especially when they don’t have dental insurance.

Dental care is the easiest on your time and wallet when it is routinely done as part of your daily ritual — brushing and flossing for a few minutes twice every day and visiting the dentist every 6 months to clean out more stubborn leftover bacteria and repair any small fillings to prevent further damage.

Here at Samoset Family Dental we have seen firsthand the value of regular dental healthcare in our office at Samoset Family Dental with our patients, which is why we wanted to give this gift of free dental care to everyone currently without dental insurance.

Our first Free Dental Day comes as one in a series of community efforts! Since Dr. Sheng has been here we have done quite a few things. One of our first successes was a Halloween candy buy-back with Operation Gratitude — we bought Halloween candy from children and sent it as a treat over to American troops overseas. We have also supported local high schools by sponsoring their athletic departments.

Preparation:

To get the word out, we posted flyers all over town — from libraries to grocery stores, as well as the South Shore Community Counsel and other local community centers. We also posted on Facebook and on broadcasted on the radio as a PSA (thanks to WATD and 99.1 for their generous help!). 

In the days leading up to the event, we made space in our waiting room and set-up a kid’s corner fully-furnished with toys and a sitting area filled with arts and crafts for our younger visitors.

We also assembled goodie bags filled with dental care items for everyone who came by and designed an educational pamphlet for after-appointment oral care. Sandy from Colgate was gracious enough to donate boxes of dental tooth brushes, toothpaste and literature for our cause.

We scheduled to book our patients on a Friday, April 1st. This was no April fools! Right at 8:00am sharp, the phone began to ring, in came another call, and another, and another. Within 2 hours, the entire day was filled! Everyone who called afterwards was put on a waitlist.

The Big Day

When the day came patients streamed in and received exams, cleanings, x-rays, fillings as needed and sealants and fluoride for the kids. Each patient had an unique story. Some had previously been receiving dental care and were in overall good health; some patients, however, discovered that years of neglect had led to a series of problems. These ranged from periodontitis (a serious gum disease) to deep decays that may end up as a root canal treatment. 

After patients had their appointments we handed them a goodie bag filled with dental care items and an printout with step-by-step instructions on how to brush and how to floss along with recommended foods and behaviors about what they need to do to keep their teeth.

The day was successfully completed with satisfied patients and a tired but fulfilled office staff. We all were moved by how grateful patients were for our services and the variety of patients we had seen. In the future we’ll continue to care for all patients — including having future events like this to make it possible for patients to get treatment in an office that’s constantly improving, that’s our goal.

Final Thoughts:

Generally speaking patients without dental insurance aren’t likely to come to the dentist regularly and we assume they aren’t as enthusiastic about their dental health as much but as we talked one-on-one with each patient, we noticed that there was a range of different situations — every patient had their own unique relationships to dentistry. 

Just to list a few:

We had a patient who hasn’t been to the dentist for 14 years. since she was twelve and she’s twenty-six. 

A young child who needed a filling but their mother couldn’t afford it otherwise and this was the perfect opportunity. 

A college student who has always been very good about keeping their teeth healthy (despite all the college student stereotypes!) — but they are self-pay and so they enjoyed a free cleaning with us help their teeth in problem-free. 

Current patients of our’s who have been coming in regularly but were in need of a lot of treatments and enjoyed taking a portion off of their future healthcare spendings. 

The common underlying tread under all of it is that we made dental treatment a possibility for some patients and life a little easier for others.

“I was very pleasantly surprised by the experience here and everybody is so kind and gentle and not pushing anything on you and just telling you what needs to be done and i’m very thankful for that.”