Tolkkinen: A Rochester dental clinic has a waiting list of more than 4,000

Kayla Murray’s tooth felt like it was going to fall out of her head. She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t work. She had a splitting migraine.

Yet she couldn’t find a dentist in St. Cloud that would see her. Every clinic was booked out for months, wouldn’t accept the private dental insurance she had through her job or said it would cost thousands of dollars to repair, which she didn’t have.

After several days of misery, she dragged herself to the emergency room.

“They numbed my entire face,” she said. “That was all they could do.”

But they also gave her an antibiotic that apparently solved the underlying problem, as the pain subsided and eventually stopped hurting. Her dental problems, which she readily admits were caused by poor dental habits as a kid — she hated the bubble-gum flavor toothpaste that her family provided — aren’t over, however. Another problem tooth has died and is now falling apart. And still she can’t find an affordable dentist.

Murray’s story is a common one in greater Minnesota, where pleas for dental help routinely pop up on social media. A mother in Alexandria said her adult son and his girlfriend needed dental care badly. A woman in St. Cloud had a broken tooth. Both were looking for a dentist that took medical assistance.

The availability of dental care for Minnesotans across the state is abysmal, particularly for adults without good, private insurance. According to the Legislative Dental Report Dashboard, there was no county in Minnesota in 2022 where at least 45% of adults on state insurance saw a dentist.

The Legislature boosted how much the state paid dentists for providing dental care for low-income Minnesotans. This helped the financial situation for the clinics whose mission is specifically treating low-income patients, but they are hampered from expanding the number of patients they see by factors that affect any other clinic, such as recruiting staff.

In fact, low-income clinics have more difficulty in recruiting staff than private clinics because they can’t pay as much, said Emma Larson, communications director at Apple Tree Dental, which has offices in many parts of the state.

There are several organizations trying to provide dental care. For decades, Children’s Dental Services has offered clinics throughout greater Minnesota. For the first time, it plans a one-day clinic at the Battle Lake school, which made me yip for joy because I know how much that will mean for parents in our area who struggle getting dental care for their children.

Sarah Wovcha from Children’s Dental Services, said dental care is just not accorded the same respect as medical care. Doctors can apply fluoride four times a year and get paid more each time than dentists, who will only be reimbursed for applying fluoride twice a year, she said.

“It’s much harder to get dental insurance than it is to get medical insurance, and the pay rates are lower,” she said.

Segregating dental care from medical care and reimbursing dentists at lower rates is especially odd because mouths are essential to our overall health. Wovcha underlined the point: Our mouths are 4 inches from our brain.

Even with the recent state rate hike, reimbursement rates remain too low for many dentists, and people are still having trouble scheduling appointments.

Caring Hands Dental Clinic in Alexandria, one of the few that accepts Medical Assistance and Minnesota Care insurance, is not accepting new patients, said clinic manager Stacy Schueller.

“We’re having a hard time seeing our current patients,” she said. Kids 10 and under schedule hygiene and cleaning appointments in January, but adults are out of luck, unless they have a dental emergency. They always leave some room in their schedule for emergencies, she said.

Apple Tree Dental, which also takes Medicaid, has a waiting list of over 4,000 individuals and families at its Rochester clinic, and 2,000 at its Fergus Falls clinic.

Often, people in rural Minnesota grin and bear their dental woes. Years ago, when we didn’t have money to treat his aching tooth, my husband found a rural dentist, an old-timer, who pulled it for around $100. Then he went on about his day.

There are bottlenecks to increasing the number of people working in dentistry. For instance, dental hygienist schools tend to have small class sizes because of the cost involved and the infrastructure needed to teach them, said Deborah Jacobi, policy director at Apple Tree Dental.

A quick search on Indeed shows a need statewide for dentists and other dental professionals, with some clinics offering to train assistants and others offering $45 to $50 an hour plus sizable sign-on bonuses for hygienists.

Those are excellent wages, especially in greater Minnesota. Maybe the dental industry needs to take out billboards advertising those wages. Maybe people making $15 an hour at a fast-food restaurant would take notice.