Asheboro’s Access Dental has become nation’s leader in specialty care

ASHEBORO — Asheboro is leading the way to specialty dental care, not just in North Carolina but nationwide.

Specialty dental care refers to treatment of the elderly and those with intellectual and developmental disabilities. They’re people who can’t go to a dentist’s office or have behavioral problems that regular dentists aren’t trained to deal with.

But Dr. Bill Milner of Asheboro has nearly 50 years of on-the-job experience and, along with Betsy White, has developed Access Dental Care teams across the state.

A native of Texas, Milner said he came to North Carolina because of its “reputation for networking together. This program has been a networking experience,” he said from his Access Dental office at 513 White Oak St.

Forty-eight years ago, in 1977, Milner was working at the Randolph County Health Department providing dental care at public schools. Known as the “school dentist,” he said he “was used to taking care to people” rather than the people coming to a dentist’s office.

Then he became aware of residents at what was then known as the Bryan Center, which was an assisted living/skilled nursing facility. 

“I realized the folks there weren’t going to get (dental) care,” he said.

Then in 1979, he spent time in England following a dentist who was going to people where they lived to provide services.

When he returned to Asheboro, Milner — along with Cleve Dunn and Kelly Harris — set up a clinic at Bryan Center and hired a dental assistant.

“We were the first in the state to manage oral hygiene and do dental work” in a setting away from the office, he said.

In 1989,  Milner worked with Mike Helgeson of Apple Tree Dental in Minneapolis, MN, “looking for a model for North Carolina, for something to work here.”

Then in the early 1990s, he began setting aside one day a week to provide dental services at several facilities — three in Asheboro, three in Greensboro and one in Southern Pines. Joining him in the endeavor were White and Janice Pell. They started a mobile dentist office to transport their equipment.

“Then we went to a group home in Greensboro,” Milner said. “There was nobody to teach us what we now call ‘special care.’”

Special care involves persons with intellectual or developmental disabilities who may not respond to “Open your mouth” or have behavioral problems. It also involves patients with Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. Some may need sedatives to calm them down.

Milner recalled one woman with Alzheimer’s who was highly agitated and couldn’t vocalize her problem. After being sedated, Milner found that she had a mouth full of infected teeth. When they were removed, he said, she was a different person.

Milner credits JB Davis and Bob Shaffner of the Klaussner Foundation for donating the money for the first mobile dental clinic. Davis’ wife, Claire, provided the furniture.

“The whole idea was home-grown in Asheboro,” Milner said. “Now we had the equipment and started going to our facilities and learning long-term care.”

For those difficult-to-handle patients, Milner was able to persuade Randolph Hospital CEO Bob Morrison to provide space in operating rooms. Then, the Cone Foundation chipped in more than $300,000 to expand the project and “people were knocking on our door and we went to 25 facilities.”

Access Dental Care was founded in 2000 as a nonprofit, now serving 201 facilities statewide. The five teams across the state will soon grow to six with the opening of Asheville. Milner expects the number of teams to grow to 10 in a few years and serve all the special needs population. 

Each team has a dentist, a hygienist and two assistants working five days a week. On an average day, a team will see 18 patients with total dental care. Milner said Access Dental serves North Carolina from Murphy to Morehead City.

Financial contributions come from foundations concerned with health care, he said, adding that the NC Dental Society is a big sponsor.

“We’ve had super cooperation with 30 special care groups around the state,” Milner said. “Now we’re the largest special care organization in the country. It all started in Asheboro but most folks don’t know what we do.

“There’s so much need we had to grow slowly,” he said. “We’re trying to find providers wanting to do something different, especially when it comes to behaviors. This is not for everybody.”

Special care isn’t taught by dental schools, he said, but Access Dental is working with schools in the state “to teach in a community setting. We need a pipeline of dental graduates. We’re educating future providers and administrators in training.”

Milner said they’re doing research projects with the UNC-Chapel Hill Adams School of Dentistry and the East Carolina University School of Dental Medicine.

Access Dental has a four-fold mission: clinical, education, advocacy and research. And word is getting out.

“We started here and slowly built the mission. Now, the State of Georgia is knocking on our door wanting to start a program,” Milner said.

The local group, he said, “had to invent the equipment. Over 25 years, we’ve developed the delivery system. Now we’re going to be selling to other programs.”

Access Dental trucks are parked behind the office ready to go to where the patients are. The trucks are loaded with the dental equipment found in any modern dentist’s office, even X-rays.

The teams can do everything, including crowns, bridges and implants.

In the next year or two, Milner said, “we’ll have the first special care fixed clinic in the state here. It’ll be specially-built for our clients.”

Special needs dental care is so needed, Milner said, that the New Hanover County commissioners “asked us to come down and start a program. The team there is serving the folks in that community.”

Access Dental Care has received a number of awards over the years. Milner said, “We’ve had plenty of compliments, but it’s been done with a lot of help. I worked with Betsy for 30 years and she’s as much a part of this as I am.” He said she was working in Wilmington the day of the interview with Randolph Hub.

Access Dental Care plans a special 25th anniversary celebration in a couple of months which will include many of their clients. And they’re the reason for everything.

Said Milner, “These folks deserve the same quality of care that we get. It’s hard to pull off. No wonder it’s not being done around the country.”

Some of the awards Access Dental Care has received include: 
■ The American Dental Association Humanitarian of the Year Award for 2023.

■ The NC Council of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Holly Riddle Award for Service.

■ The NC Dental Society Geriatric Dental Health Care Award of 1988.

■ The NC Coalition on Aging 2024 Pioneer Award.