NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – On Jan. 9, Greylock Dental opened in North Adams and is accepting new patients.

 

Dr. Benjamin Woolnough opened the practice at 98 Church St. to increase access to dental care, citing a shortage of options in Berkshire County.

 

"The Berkshires is a fantastic community in terms of dentists; it's a very tight-knit community, everyone looks out for one another," Woolnough said. "It's just we're kind of at the point where it's a capacity thing; there's just not a lot of places for all the patients to get in, so that was something that was really important to me was trying to do my part to get people in and back to the dentist."

 

Woolnough said many people have struggled to resume regular dental appointments since the COVID-19 pandemic. A growing population and a decrease in area dentists have made it difficult for residents to find openings.

 

"Especially coming off, you know, we're not that far off from COVID-19, so I think we have a lot of people who after COVID-19 had a hard time getting back into the dentist. A lot of people retired in the dental field—dentists and hygienists—so it's just a growing population and a shrinking subset of dentists and dental hygienists," Woolnough said.

 

It took Woolnough a year to open Greylock Dental, and he plans to expand. The office currently has three patient chairs. As the client base grows, he hopes to add two more chairs, a dental hygienist and additional staff. The current team comprises three people, including Woolnough.

 

"As we grow, we're hoping to add on more team members, and, you know, with that will come the ability to take on more patients. So, as we grow, we're going to hopefully expand our hygiene department and have more hygienists, and we are going to hopefully see more patients on my side, which we are really excited about," he said.

 

The office currently has more than 100 patients and sees about five or six daily. Woolnough said the office offers a full range of dental services, including extractions, emergency care and prosthetics.

 

"Our goal is for people to have comprehensive dental health, and we also deal with a lot of emergencies, people who have pain, swelling, and discomfort," he said. "We do kind of everything."

 

The office is an "unrestricted provider." Woolnough said this status allows for greater flexibility in patient care.

 

"It's where we're not contracted with insurances, and the reason that we do that is it allows us to have more flexibility in what we are able to do with our patients," he said. "We, as a courtesy, will file on behalf of our patients, and they can utilize; our goal is to maximize your insurance benefits, and what we're not subject to is certain restrictions that insurance places on things. Our goal is to treat the patient, not to treat what insurance wants us to do."

 

The office also offers patients an annual in-office benefit plan.

 

"We know a lot of our patients don't have insurance, or the insurance that they have encountered maybe doesn't suit their needs very well," Woolnough said. "So we have a plan that allows patients to have an annual membership that covers their hygiene, it covers an emergency visit, it covers any kind of X-rays they need; it's really designed to help optimize their health."

 

Woolnough has 10 years of experience in dentistry. Originally from Alabama, he practiced in Boston before moving to the Berkshires.

 

The office is open Mondays through Thursdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. On Fridays, he sees patients at Hillcrest Dental in Pittsfield.

 

Woolnough hopes to change people's perceptions of dental visits and encourage them to seek care.

 

"I have a lot of patients that maybe have had some things in the past where they've lost trust in their dentist or something was uncomfortable, and we really want to help get them back to a point where they feel comfortable here," he said. "We really want them to feel like they can engage and there's trust, so anything we can do to facilitate that is really our ultimate goal."

 

Woolnough also wants people to know they don't have to be nervous and that the office is a judgment-free zone.

 

"We're not a place that judges anybody; we've seen anything and everything, nothing can surprise us, there's nothing that we are never going to shy away from, so we really just want people to know that coming in we really respect people who do that and we are really happy to have them here and we look forward to taking care of them," he said.