For offering low-cost teeth cleanings, the Arkansas Dental Board threatened to revoke my license and ruin my business. Now I’m taking the Board to court.

For offering low-cost teeth cleanings, the Arkansas Dental Board threatened to revoke my license and ruin my business. Now I’m taking the Board to court.

I have been a practicing orthodontist for just shy of a decade. Everyone who wants a great and healthy smile should be able to afford it. In 2008, I created Smile for a Lifetime Foundation, which grants free braces to children whose parents could not otherwise afford them. The foundation has awarded more than $20 million worth of care to deserving kids since then.

Dental work can be expensive, especially for those without insurance. More than 60 percent of adults in Arkansas visited a dentist last year. That number drops for those struggling in this economy. Only one-third of low-income Arkansans visited the dentist at least once last year. Arkansas clearly needs more access to improve oral health, not less.

To that end, last June, I started offering dental cleanings, X-rays and exams at discount prices: $99 for adults, $69 for kids. I wanted to increase access to top-notch dental care and shake up an industry that desperately needs innovation. Instead, the Arkansas Dental Board forced me to stop offering cleanings and threatened to revoke my license. Having my license taken would have destroyed my career and left 100 employees, many of them primary bread winners, out of a job!

Unbelievably, the Board is punishing me for having excelled in dental school and for having more education than primary care dentists. After I graduated from dental school, I was accepted into a competitive three-year, full-time residency in orthodontics. But under the Arkansas Dental Practice Act, it’s against the law for dental specialists (like orthodontists) to provide the most basic dental services. Yet a primary care dentist is allowed to put on braces, even though he or she has had no formal training in orthodontics. In other words, general dentists can practice up, but orthodontists like me can’t practice down. Only seven other states have this nonsensical law and there is no evidence that dental care is worse in states without the law.

The Board is using this backward law to stifle innovation, limit competition and keep prices artificially high for working Arkansans. One dentist even complained to the Board (which consists of seven dentists, one hygienist and one non-dentist) that he was "disgusted" by my practice of offering affordable dental services. In Arkansas, primary care dentists charge anywhere from twice to three times as much for the same services I was offering, so I can only assume why he was disgusted. But banning orthodontists from performing basic services limits competition and jacks up prices for consumers.

This ban even prevents qualified professionals from performing charity work. One of my colleagues, Dr. Elizabeth Gohl, is also a licensed dentist and orthodontist. For five years, she served as a dentist in the U.S. Navy, extracting teeth from hundreds of sailors. After Dr. Gohl left the Navy, she performed charity dental work in places like Brazil, India and Kenya, before she moved to Arkansas, where she now works for my practice.

After coming to Arkansas, Dr. Gohl tried to sign up for Free Extraction Day, when Arkansans who might not be able to afford costly dental work can get troublesome teeth extracted for free. Every year, the event helps hundreds of people. But Arkansas would not let her volunteer to help those in need because, like me, she’s also a licensed orthodontist in addition to being a general dentist. Charity should not be against the law.

To increase access to low-cost care and defend our constitutional right to earn an honest living, Dr. Gohl and I are suing the Arkansas Dental Board in federal court. The Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that fights for entrepreneurs all across the country, has taken our case. Arkansas’ outdated law needs to be pulled like a rotten tooth.

Dr. Ben Burris, D.D.S., M.D.S., is the owner of Arkansas Braces and Braces by Burris and is a client of the Institute for Justice. A news report about this lawsuit appeared in the May 28 edition.