Have You Considered Dental School Clinics?

Dental school clinics like Penn Dental Medicine have great benefits to offer patients like you.

How long has it been since you last visited the dentist? If you are like many U.S. adults, it may have been a year or more. Despite the important role that good oral health plays in their overall health, many individuals put off the preventive and even restorative services that they need due to concerns about cost or scheduling. The good news is that dental school clinics like those at Penn Dental Medicine are providing important services which meet the needs and concerns that many have about dental care. If you or someone in your family is in need of high-quality, low-cost dental care, a teaching clinic like ours may be a great option to consider.

How Dental School Clinics Work

Dental school clinics like that at Penn Dental Medicine operate as a part of the educational programs which train the dentists of tomorrow. At these clinics, patients receive high-quality, low-cost dental care from predoctoral and postdoctoral dental school students. These students are supervised by faculty at the school, ensuring the highest quality of every treatment.

To become a part of the program, patients typically go through an application process to ensure their needs are in line with the educational needs of students. If so, these patients can look forward to outstanding general and specialized dentistry care from their student doctor and supervising faculty.

Meeting a Need

These high-quality, low-cost dental school clinics go a long way to meet the oral health care needs of patients in their areas. Recent studies from the American Dental Association and the Health Policy Institute report significant numbers of adults and children who did not get the dental care they needed in 2014:

• Only 52.3% of adults reported that they visited the dentist every 6 months the past few years
• 21.3% of adults said they had not visited the dentist in the past few years
• 10.7% reported that their children had not visited the dentist in the last few years
• Over 40% of adults reported that they will forgo dental care due to the cost.

Dental school clinics play an important role for both adults and children in providing affordable dental care in a professional and high-quality environment. At the same time, these clinics continue to assist in training the dentists of tomorrow, ensuring that excellent dental care is available for the next generation as well.

For more information about the work that Penn Dental Medicine and other dental school clinics are doing, and how you can become a patient, please contact us today at 215-898-8965.