The Aspen Dental chain is bringing a much-needed expansion of dental care to the central Maine region with plans to open an Augusta office later this year.

The company's Waterville office opened this past year and was soon inundated with patients.

Try to get an appointment there as a new patient and be prepared to wait: The dentists are booked until October.

That kind of pent-up demand is directly related to the shortage of dentists in the state. Sarah Shed, who works for the Maine Dental Access Coalition, says "most of Maine is considered underserved," meaning we don't have enough dentists. The numbers bear out her assertion: The national ratio of residents-to-dentists was 1,828-to-1; in Maine, that ratio is 2,252-to-1 and in Kennebec County, it's 2,011-to-1.

Besides its Waterville outpost, Aspen has offices in Bangor, Topsham, Portland, South Portland and Biddeford.

The new Augusta office is slated to open at the end of the year; it will be in the old Brooks Boys/Capitol Car Care location on Western Avenue, where Aspen's promotional material says it will provide "affordable, full-service denture and dental care."

If history is any guide, the Augusta office, too, will quickly fill with patients.

The arrival of Aspen in Augusta and Waterville will clearly not solve the demand for dental care in this part of Maine, but its presence will chip away at the demand while dentists in the state work to recruit more of their colleagues to the state over the long-term.