EAST WHATCOM COUNTY — Kathy Howard’s last experience at the dentist left her with an exposed tooth root tip in her mouth that kept getting infected, she said. The Paradise resident decided to try again when she saw a mobile dentistry van drive in behind her at the East Whatcom Regional Resource Center one Thursday in early March.
“Easier to come here than the dental clinics in town,” she said.
When Howard visited, she spoke with dentist and clinic founder Dr. Jessica Dubek. Howard shared that she and her husband were homeless for 10 years before finding a place a few years ago.
“A lot of people think that when you’ve lost that many teeth, you are dirty,” she told Dubek.
Howard told Cascadia Daily News that she and her husband had stayed behind the Walmart in Bellingham — “never again,” she said with a wry laugh.
Though some people believe tooth loss is due to drugs, she said, “it’s not always the case. Mine, it was being homeless. Not being able to brush your teeth as often or at all.”
Treating patients like Howard is the driving mission behind the DentALL mobile dental clinic, which seeks to provide dental services to those who lack easy access to care. DentALL began visiting the Maple Falls resource center earlier this month; it takes the place of the Medical Teams International mobile clinics, which visited the center monthly between 2023 and 2024 before canceling services last fall.
DentALL accepts Medicaid and Medicare, among other insurers. If patients are uninsured, the clinic provides care for free. It is set to visit the east Whatcom center on April 17, May 1 and May 17.
Hygienist Cassidy Bachman said many of the patients DentALL treats haven’t been to the dentist in 10 years or more. Even if a patient has Medicaid, many offices don’t accept it.
Dubek, who spent a decade as the dental director at the Lummi Tribal Health Center, founded DentALL a couple of years ago. Though it began as a dental consulting business, the company soon evolved after discussions about opening a clinic on Orcas Island turned into a conversation about Dubek taking on that project.
Since then, DentALL has offered portable dental services, where the team brings equipment into a building and sets up shop. This January, the company became a “mobile” clinic, meaning providers can also offer services in the bright blue DentALL van.
“There’s so many barriers when it comes to the populations that we are seeing that they’re already facing,” Dubek said, “that I think then having this form of delivery, bringing it to the patient, eliminates some of those barriers.”
In the state, 38 out of 39 counties are federally designated as complete or partial Dental Health Professional Shortage Areas, according to a 2023 report. In 2021, the report continues, just 23% of Washington residents eligible for Medicaid got dental care.
DentALL serves patients at the Maple Falls center, Recovery Cafe Skagit, the Whatcom County Jail and on Lopez and Orcas islands. Dubek hopes to expand to other Whatcom and Skagit locations in the next few months.
As the clinic is not yet financially sustained by insurance payments, it also charges partner organizations — such as the Opportunity Council, which runs the center in east Whatcom — a daily rate.
Yarrow Greer, community services manager for Opportunity Council, wrote in an email that though funding for the dental services “is only secure through May, we hope to see the program continue through additional grants and private donations.”
The clinic offers medical interpreting services in Spanish, Russian and Ukrainian.
Interpretation is one way to help tackle what Dubek described as a long list of questions confronting those trying to navigate the health care system: Can you read and write? Do you know how to ask for an appointment? Do you know how insurance works? Do you know how to sign up for insurance? Do you have money for gas or a bus ticket to get to the clinic? Is someone watching your children?
At the east Whatcom center, the DentALL team takes appointments in the building, behind privacy screens, and in the van. The loud whirring of the generator fills the small space in the van mostly taken up by the dental chair.
Lora Johnson heard about the clinic through her son’s Head Start program, also held in the center. She lives “just around the corner,” she said. She came because she wanted to “have a nice smile again.”
It had been four or five years since her last dentist appointment because care was unaffordable, Johnson said.
At DentALL, she got a tooth extracted. It was bothering her for “a really long time.” Johnson’s teeth affected the foods she ate and gave her headaches. She was in pain “all the time.” Sleeping could be difficult.
She’s had bad experiences with dentists in the past. “There’s always pain involved,” she said, “and I feel like sometimes there’s a lot of judgment because my teeth are bad.”
The mobile clinic was different, she said. Staff members were friendly and knowledgeable.
Some people dread visiting the dentist. Not DentALL’s patients, said Bachman, the hygienist: “They’re so grateful.”
As for Howard, the clinic set her up with an appointment later in the month.
Sophia Gates covers rural Whatcom and Skagit counties. She is a Washington State Murrow Fellow whose work is underwritten by taxpayers and available outside CDN's paywall. Reach her at sophiagates@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 131.
