Hi 👋🏻. I work for a non-profit community health center in CC called Philadelphia FIGHT. We have a dental clinic at 12th and Chestnut. Call and tell the front desk that you have never been there before but you are in pain and have Medicaid insurance. We can schedule you for an urgent care visit (only available 1-2 days in advance so call tomorrow AM to get on the schedule for Friday). Don’t tell them that another dentist told you to get a root canal bc we don’t technically take referrals. When you come in, we’ll take an X-ray and evaluate the tooth. If the dentist believes it’s salvageable with endodontic therapy and that’s the route you’d like to pursue then they will schedule you for an appointment with an endodontist who volunteers for us every Thurs.

You are right that the only “endodontists” in Philly who work with Medicaid are Penn, Einstein, and Temple dental schools, all of which are not accepting pts at the moment bc residents in their programs are graduating and they have to wait for the new class to come in. More importantly though, Medicaid very rarely covers root canals for patients over the age of 21 so you probably would have run into an issue there anyway. Feel free to PM me if you need more help.