Sixty-five percent of Whitman County residents cited dental care as their number one need and dental disease as the number four medical condition in a 2015 Whitman County survey.

“Dental insurance is a benefit that is starting to fade away,” said Ben Bowen of Moscow Family Dentistry. “When the insurance is not going to cover certain procedures, a lot of patients choose to not do the work that is needed.”

Many residents said they had cracked, missing or painful teeth, in need of fillings or root canals. Though much of this stems from lack of professional care, some residents said they received improper dental treatment.

WSU student Phe Locke, a senior English major, sought treatment at one of the few places in the Palouse that accepted Medicaid. She said her treatment there caused permanent nerve damage and she now needs a root canal.

Locke went to Pullman Family Dentistry only to find Medicaid did not cover the procedure, and required a $200 down payment. She said she plans to go home to Renton to get a root canal and have her wisdom teeth pulled.

Pullman resident Matthew Willington said he had an incident with another local dentist.

“He would fart around with one tooth I had, always fixing it,” Willington said. “It eventually became infected and I ended up almost dead. ER doctor said I was lucky I came to the ER when I did.”

Willington’s dual insurance covered the treatment, but some do not have that option. Though Medicaid, Medicare and state insurance cover a variety of procedures, only some dental offices accept it as payment.

“It seems the government will pay to extract teeth but not to fix them,” Pullman resident Inka Walker said.

Because of this, Walker and many other residents use self-treatment when brushing is not enough. Walker said she used Dentemp to cover cracked teeth and medicates regularly with Ibuprofen. Even so, she needed her three front teeth pulled.

“Which was very depressing due to my self-image and how (others) would look at me,” Walker said. Medicaid denied her claim to get a flipper to cover her missing teeth. Instead, she paid $1,000.

According to multiple Palouse residents, some dentists accept Medicaid but they have long wait lists. Farmington resident Jen Martin said she has been trying to get an appointment since January, but dentists told her she would be wait-listed until December.

“They weren’t adding anybody to the list,” Martin said.

Pullman Resident Tiara Palmer said she had success in avoiding the waitlist.

“(They) got me in quickly,” Palmer said. “I had to have a tooth pulled, they did it that day.”

Other residents said they went on the waiting list for time periods ranging from two months to a year. After losing a filling, WSU student Cody Williams, a senior environmental science major, said he went to a local dentist but they no longer took state insurance.

He said he then went to a dentist in Spokane where he was told he would be put on a waitlist for at least two months. He went back home to Cathlamet where they accepted his state insurance.

A new Community Health Associate of Spokane, which will accept Medicaid from both Idaho and Washington residents and have a sliding scale fee, is opening in Moscow in October. Despite this, some residents said they are still concerned.

“The influx will ultimately take over,” said Pullman resident Andrea Duibheannaigh, “simply because state insurance and disability insurance is limited.”