If you’ve ever had a toothache before, I am sure you can remember the pain! When five-year-old Lydia came to our clinic she had been crying for two days. Her parents had taken her to the hospital and they had offered to pull the tooth after anesthetizing her—for a cost of $3,000! Her parents didn’t have insurance or the money to pay for it. Her parents took her to our clinic and one of our dentists were able to calm and reassure both Lydia and her parents by extracting the tooth for less than $100.

Access to affordable quality dental care is a serious problem for low-income and minority adults, families and children here in the Twin Cities — especially for immigrants and refugees. Many new immigrants, especially of Karen (Burmese) descent, have lived for years in refugee camps without access to any dental services or dental supplies and many of their children have never seen a dentist. They don’t understand the correlation between poor oral health and poor physical health. Most have no idea that dental disease can impact a person’s self-image, wellbeing and achievement, can lead to stress and depression, and can cause serious behavior or attention problems.

When Drs. Vacharee and Andrew Peterson began their clinic in East St. Paul back in 1982, they were one of the first private clinics in the Twin Cities that focused primarily on serving low-income and minority patients. To ensure continued access to high quality dental care for the large numbers of patients enrolled in public programs, the clinic was incorporated into a nonprofit in August 2004 and began serving patients as Community Dental Care in January 2005...

Community Dental Care continues to grow as a family and is excited to announce their new clinic opening in Rochester, MN! We hope to open our doors in Rochester in mid-December and serve the thousands of people living in the Rochester area.

Community Dental Care Saint Paul

828 Hawthorne Avenue East

St. Paul, MN 55106

(651-774-2959)

Community Dental Care Maplewood

1670 Beam Avenue Suite 204

Maplewood, MN 55109

(651-925-8400)

Community Dental Care Rochester

1926 College View Road SE HC #116

Rochester, MN 55904

To learn more about our clinic, visit us at:

www.cdentc.org

ATTENTION:

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