My teenage daughter, then a junior in high school, needed emergency dental care on the trickiest of…read moredays. It was a day not only three shy of her departing for a week-long school trip abroad that she'd been working toward and paying for since she was a freshman; but a day when, I am embarrassed to say that, our state insurance had lapsed. She woke up in severe pain and tears, revealing to us she'd been hiding the issue for fear it would nullify her trip. Morganton Park Dental Care took her at the last minute for examination and x-rays when no one else would; got her an additional, local, same-day, root canal appointment when no one else would see her; and took her again for the follow-up potion of the whole procedure before she left on a plane. It was a process that involved a dentist coming in on her day off; us coming in outside of posted hours; scheduling that their internet interface would not allow; answering their phones which no one else in the area had for the ceaseless hours I'd been trying; and a verbalized list of available discounts and credit options from disparate sources that could help us with the bill. Having called and left messages for every dentist I could find in a two-hour driving radius, to this day, though Morganton Park Dental Care made sure it would no longer be necessary, just one, ONE, of those other dentists has called me back. That dentist's office did so 20 days later and offered an "emergency" appointment 3.5 months thereafter. I like Morganton Park because of how they treated us, by comparison. Not for nothing, it also warrants mention that while our insurance had been in good standing, (going back to before Morganton Park had opened) my daughter's existing appointments to address her cavities at another establishment, the only area establishment willing to accept a minor, her age, with our coverage, had previously insisted upon doing so over four appointments, one per quadrant of her teeth, sessions that they'd scheduled "as close together as they could." That meant sessions to fill her known cavities, each on the books eight months apart from the other and us remaining far down on a constant waiting list for happenstance cancelations. Shorthand...the absolute best anyone in the Aberdeen/Southern Pines/Pinehurst area could do, with coverage, was to allow select cavities to age more than two years without attention and fully ensure my daughter would require a root canal at age 16. Morganton Park immediately filled her other cavities when she got back from her trip. Expensive? Yes, but no moreso than anywhere else. I shouldn't have to say it's "funny" how Morganton Park's best did all this and didn't even require the coverage. Look, the brief lapse in insurance is completely on me. Hiding her pain until it was too late? Also on me. Not remembering or checking how fast a cavity can get out of control? Still me. Though I needed to listen to what the professionals were telling me, schedule-wise and safety-wise, I don't blame any of the dentists or office workers previous to Morganton Park. I'm sure their professionalism is beyond reproach and therefore at least somewhat unable to manage my personal failures. Finding fault is not what this post is about. But in a seemingly inescapable local business culture focused on chiefly dental WORK, it doesn't seem so much of a stretch for me to characterize Morganton Park's splendid handling of my situation as what we used to call it, dental CARE.
