The Oklahoma Dental Foundation is bringing five new mobile dental clinics to Oklahoma after receiving $5.1 million in American Rescue Plan Act pandemic relief money.

The legislature appropriated this money to the clinics, which allow patients to receive everything from cleanings to fillings from a licensed professional for free. The MobileSmiles project began in 2005 to remove barriers to care for patients across the state.

John Wilguess, the foundation’s executive director, said last year, 80% of the 1,300 patients these clinics served had an annual income of less than $20,000. They were met in 146 sites across the state, and the total value of benefits they received was over $600,000

These additional clinics will help the program serve more Oklahomans.

“We’re trying to make certain that those patients who have needs are not limited (in) access to care because of geographic reasons, which we’re now overcoming, and not because of cost,” Wilguess said.

Four dental clinics will provide care in the state’s quadrants, and the fifth will travel between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. The OU College of Dentistry, a partner of the program, will get to send more dental students on training stints in the additional clinics. Wilguess said this initiative will benefit students and could later benefit rural workforces.

“It introduces those dental students to have an opportunity to understand what it might mean to live in one of the communities across Oklahoma. To allow them to see how they might be able to, not just expand treatment through the mobile clinics, but one day agree that they might live in one of those communities and be able to create a practice there and establish a permanent solution for dental health care,” Wilguess said.

Sen. Chuck Hall (R-Perry), the co-chair of the joint committee on pandemic relief funding, said he’s thrilled the Oklahoma legislature is showing continued commitment to ensuring Oklahomans receive quality care.

“There should be no excuses for Oklahomans to put off going to the dentist because if you can’t go to the dentist, the dentist will now come to you,” Hall said.

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