Celebrated each year on March 6, National Dentists Day is a chance to acknowledge the dedication and expertise of dental professionals while highlighting the significance of oral health in our lives.
As the nation’s largest provider of dental benefits, Delta Dental understands the value dentists bring to all of us. National Dentists Day is a day to recognize those contributions and to also consider the importance of oral health to your overall health.
Delta Dental of Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana as well as the Delta Dental Foundation of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina work to promote the importance of oral health and make access to quality, affordable oral health care a reality. It’s a charge we take seriously and one we’re exceptionally proud to undertake. Providing affordable, top-notch dental plans is, of course, key to the work done at Delta Dental of Michigan. But it tells only part of the story.
But did you know Delta Dental of Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana are actually non-profit organizations? It’s true. The organization is, indeed, a nonprofit entity with a very clear mission: To improve oral health through benefit plans, advocacy and community support.
Delta Dental of Michigan was first established in 1957 as the Michigan Dental Service Corporation by a group of dentists to address the growing demand by employees for better dental benefits. Their goal was simple: To enable more people to get the dental care they need.
By the 1980s, Delta Dental of Michigan had grown to become one of the leading providers of dental benefits and the Delta Dental Foundation was created to provides grants to programs that improve oral health and advance dental science and education. Coupled with Delta Dental’s community relations programs that support initiatives across Michigan that help create health, smart, vibrant communities and Delta Dental’s nonprofit mission comes to life.
In early 2006, Delta Dental of Michigan, with its affiliated companies in Ohio and Indiana, and Delta Dental of Tennessee, signed an affiliation agreement under a new nonprofit holding company to increase the number of Americans with dental benefits. In 2009-2010, Delta Dental of Kentucky, Delta Dental of New Mexico and Delta Dental of North Carolina affiliated with the family of companies. The newest affiliate, Delta Dental of Arkansas, joined the enterprise in 2012.
Delta Dental and the Delta Dental Foundation have long been philanthropic fixtures in communities across Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana.
In 2021, the Motor City Kares initiative, supported by Delta Dental of Michigan, Ford Motor Company and Kare Mobile provided a fully outfitted Ford Transit mobile dental clinic to two minority, Michigan-licensed dentists as part of a program aimed at uplifting minority businesses and bringing high-quality, mobile oral health care services to communities and residents in Southwest Detroit.
The Delta Dental Special Care Clinic at the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis campus provides more accessible dental care for people with disabilities.
These are just a small sampling of the initiatives and projects that Delta Dental and the Delta Dental Foundation have had a hand in.
By supporting community-based initiatives, educational programs, and outreach efforts, Delta Dental is indeed working to fulfill its nonprofit mission and making a real difference in access to quality, affordable oral health care.
National Dentists Day is a day to celebrate, recognize and understand the role dentists and dental professionals play in our overall health. Join us in saying “thank you” to them all.
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