Providing critical treatment to those in need.

We Restore Lives, One Tooth at a Time

Serving Jackson, Macon, Swain, and Transylvania counties of Western North Carolina.

The Toothfairies

The Toothfairies

 

The Blue Ridge Free Dental Clinic delivers high-quality emergency, restorative and preventative dental care to people who cannot otherwise afford these critically needed services. We restore lives—one tooth at a time. Since its beginning in 2005, the Clinic has performed over 68,000 procedures over 20,000 patient visits with a value exceeding $10 million dollars. A comprehensive care model is simply not available to poor residents of Western North Carolina without the Free Dental Clinic.

The need and the people we serve:

The Clinic serves a rural population with the following barriers to dental care:

  • Higher rates of poverty; based on US census data, over 17,000 low-income residents of this region would financially qualify for our Clinic's services

  • A larger percentage of the elderly population

  • Geographic isolation

  • Lack of adequate transportation

  • Lower dental insurance rates

  • Acute provider shortages

 

We Still Need Your Support!

Please consider a donation to the Free Dental Clinic. 100% of your gift will go directly to helping people smile again.

 

Perhaps the greatest barrier is wealth. With poverty levels ranging from 15%-21% in our region, we know that dental disease is concentrated among these lower-income populations. This gap in dental disease between lower- and other-income groups should come as no surprise when one considers concurrent trends in social determinants of disease. Out-of-pocket expenses for dental care are more than three times higher than for medical care. Lack of dental coverage and/or ability to pay pose even greater barriers for rural populations, who are already challenged by fewer dental providers to access for care. Primary care providers and Emergency Departments (ED) have limited resources to properly treat urgent dental needs, and yet, ED dental visits per 10,000 population in WNC is 91.8 (more than twice the national rate and higher than the state rate of 87.9).

Would you show up to make someone smile?

 

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