Free Dental Care for Veterans

Aspen Dental offered free dental care for a day. The beneficiaries of this project were thousands of veterans from all over the country.

Out of the 21 million veterans in the US, just a half is enrolled in the governmental program offering health benefits. Moreover, 1.2 million of those that are enrolled do not have any health insurance, and many of them do not receive dental care benefits.

The event is the second of this type organized by Aspen. The clinic wants to show solidarity and gratitude towards veterans. The consultations took around 30 minutes, and the doctors performed routine dental work.

The program is a part of an initiative started in 2014 that wants to offer free dental care to people who are economically vulnerable.

The action included informative sessions on dental health and targeted interventions that were available upon request.

More than 400 dental offices participated at the event, and the total value of the interventions was over $3.5 million.

The Aspen Dental staff volunteers for the day’s work, and the event takes place every year.

The clinic representatives said the initiative wanted to offer veterans as many local resources as possible.

According to the US Department of Veterans Affairs, the only persons that can receive dental care under their program are former prisoners of war, people that are rated to be 100% physically challenged, and those who had a service-related dental condition.

One of the Aspen clinic doctors said that the most common dental issues that can be found among veterans are broken teeth or conditions due to lack of nutrition.

Once returned home, veterans can encounter many challenges related to the return to civilian life. Aspen Dental took the effort to help them overcome one of these difficulties, by offering free dental care one day each year.

In 2015, Aspen Dental even had a mobile dental office that traveled across 21 states to provide free medical care to veterans.

The Healthy Mouth Movement organized by Aspen Dental is a partner of Got Your Six, a campaign that tries to improve veterans’ image in society and aims at helping them becoming functioning members of their communities.

Got Your Six campaign focuses on empowering veterans and motivating communities to reach out towards the ex-militaries who now try to get involved again in the civilian life.

The title of the organization is a reference to a saying originating in World War I when the pilots called the most vulnerable vision spot as “six o’clock.” “Got your six” was an expression used by a pilot to reassure his partner of their help.

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