“If you look inside a person’s mouth, that will give you a pretty good picture of their overall health,” says Ashley Casey, co-founder of the Mississippi based mobile dental service Smiles To Go.
“You can look at some of the children who’ve got 12 to 15 cavities, and it kinda will paint a picture for you about their overall, general health,” she continued.
Ashley Casey, a registered nurse, and her husband, Lee Casey, a registered dentist, founded Smiles To Go in 2014. The program partners with Mississippi school districts to ensure children in need receive dental services regardless of economic status. It aims to improve children’s health by improving their teeth.
Idea to implementation
The Caseys decided to establish the program after returning from a dental mission trip to Haiti several years ago. Ashley Casey says she recognized some of “the hardships Mississippians face with being the poorest state in our country.”
“We realized we had to do something once we got back home to Mississippi,” Ashley added.
The Liberty, Mississippi-based couple opened a private dental practice, serving some low-income patients and patients with no insurance.
After their patient base grew too large for the practice, Casey decided a mobile dental service would allow them to continue serving a large population of Mississippians, especially Mississippi’s school-aged children.
She says many U.S. states’ school districts already employ dental services, and Smiles To Go helps fill the health care gap for Mississippi’s students.
School partnerships
Smiles To Go travels to schools throughout Mississippi to provide all preventative services: cleanings, exams, fluoride therapy, sealants and x-rays. According to Ashley, the business can easily set up and take down their equipment, and it is the same equipment used by the military for similar mobile dental services.
She says the program never charges school districts, and parents are not billed unless, on a consent form, they indicate they have some type of general insurance.
About half of the parents whose children they serve have some form of insurance, while the other half have none, according to Ashley.
Smiles To Go hires local dentists and dental hygienists from throughout the state as the program travels. Casey says they hire dentists from regions they serve, and those dentists get a schedule of when and where Smiles To Go will be in the area.
“With at least 50 percent of patients having dental insurance, that has covered the cost of the program,” says Casey.
During their last board meeting Columbus Municipal School District approved a memorandum of understanding with Smiles To Go in a 3-1 vote, partnering with the dental service company for the second consecutive year.
CMSD is one of over 30 school districts throughout the state Smiles To Go serves. Other area districts include Starkvile-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District, Noxubee County School District and Lee County School District.
Smiles To Go served roughly 2,500 students and over 30 school faculty members statewide in 2015-2016.
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