Members of the community around Marshall University now have a place to find walk-in dental care. The new service addresses urgent oral health needs, offering immediate care and treatment without an appointment.
Located in Huntington, the emergency walk-in clinic is available for anyone experiencing issues including toothaches or severe pain, chipped or broken teeth, lost fillings or crowns, dental abscesses or infections and oral injuries or trauma
Lexa Woodyard, department administrator for Marshall Health Dentistry and Oral Surgery, said the new dental clinic mirrors urgent care centers where a patient checks in, sees a provider, and gets immediate treatment.
“There is a great need for urgent dental care in this area,” Woodyard said. “When you’ve got tooth pain, it can be some of the worst pain that you can have, and when you’ve got it, you want it taken care of immediately. Unfortunately, some urgent care centers usually aren’t equipped to handle dental issues, and they end up referring it to a dentist anyway. So we’re just cutting that step out so you can come to a dentist directly.”
Woodyard said this is the only such dental walk-in clinic in the Huntington metro area, and area dentists have already been calling in with enthusiasm about the service.
“In some cases, like if there’s an infection in a tooth, sometimes the right thing to do isn’t to pull the tooth right away,” Woodyard said. “Sometimes you need to be on antibiotics first, and then come back to have the tooth pulled. So it’s just a patient dependent treatment plan.”
She said the service is open to all, offering several payment options.
“We offer or accept a lot of insurance providers,” Woodyard said. “We’ve got a list of those on our website. We even have some workers comp policies that we accept. Patients can call in and we can let them know if their insurance is covered. If it is not, we do offer a cash pay program for patients. We also offer a program called Care Credit, and that’s basically like a medical credit card.”
For insurance providers included and other details on the new Marshall Health emergency walk-in dental service,click here.