Dave Burge slept in his truck in freezing weather to make a dental appointment. He needed dentures but couldn’t afford them. Burge was one of more than 1,200 people who waited — some for days — for a free appointment at a Remote Area Medical pop-up clinic in Knoxville, Tennessee. RAM provides medical, dental and vision care to uninsured and underinsured Americans around the country.
“When they hand you your life back, that’s life changing,” Burge said. “That’s what teeth mean to me. I could be a normal human again.”
Burge says he already had about $140,000 in medical bills after an uninsured drunk driver ran a red light and nearly killed him in 2012. Later, a construction accident at work damaged his teeth again. With little money left, he kept working and put off care.
Sandra Tallent drove more than 200 miles from Alabama and spent two nights sleeping in her car to get a dental appointment with RAM. Like Burge, she said she couldn’t have afforded dentures without the free clinic.
Health care is a major cost for many Americans. About a third say they’ve skipped meals, borrowed money or cut back on utilities to pay for health care, according to a March Gallup poll. Policy changes in recent years have produced mixed effects: the federal government has negotiated lower prices on some drugs while premiums in the Affordable Care Act marketplace have risen and Medicaid funding has faced cuts. Government data show millions have lost insurance coverage under recent administrations and projections suggest more could in coming years.
At RAM clinics, about half the patients have no insurance. The rest have coverage they cannot afford to use because of high copays and deductibles, or they cannot find providers who accept their plans. RAM CEO Chris Hall says roughly 60% of patients seek dental care, about 30% request eye exams and glasses, and roughly 5% need medical treatment. Volunteers also offer screenings for blood sugar, blood pressure, breast and skin cancer and other conditions.
RAM began decades ago with founder Stan Brock, who brought medical help to remote places and later focused on uninsured Americans. Today the organization runs clinics nearly every weekend across the country. The charity stages clinics that can cost between $100,000 and $500,000 each weekend, funded largely by donations. Hall says more than 81% of RAM’s supporters are individual donors giving modest monthly amounts. Clinic space and supplies are often donated as well.
In Knoxville, 887 volunteers turned out, including doctors, dentists and medical students who pay their own way to volunteer. Brad Sands, a former paramedic who coordinates RAM clinics, said the volunteers come without judgment and give their time and money to help neighbors in need.
Dr. Glen Goldstein, a dentist from New Jersey, started volunteering after seeing a 60 Minutes report in 2008. Volunteering has become a family affair for him; his wife, children and daughter-in-law now help at clinics. Goldstein said he sees patients who’ve gone without care and lost hope. He described young people asking to have all their teeth removed because they couldn’t afford repairs — a request he finds heartbreaking.
RAM has treated more than a million patients with the help of over a quarter-million volunteers since its founding. After a 2008 broadcast about the organization, $4 million in donations poured in and volunteer numbers rose, enabling RAM to expand to roughly 90 clinics a year.
At the Knoxville weekend, RAM provided more than a million dollars in free care. Volunteers treated 1,224 patients, produced 588 pairs of glasses, pulled 1,467 teeth, filled 283 cavities, performed 342 dental cleanings and conducted 247 medical exams.
Denture patients, including Burge and Tallent, experienced a dramatic transformation. At the clinic, a trailer equipped with 3D printers was used to make dentures. Connor Gibson, a 22-year-old engineer who helped build the trailer, stayed overnight to keep printers running non-stop. He described the “mirror moment” — when a patient seeing their new dentures in a mirror visibly relaxes and often cries as stress and embarrassment melt away.
Burge and Tallent both had that mirror moment and smiled with their new dentures. “I don’t know what I’d do [without RAM],” Tallent said. “You know, the Lord would make a way. But I feel like he has made a way through RAM.”