New Patient Experience
When you arrive for your first visit, please be prepared to complete a healthy history, and insurance information form. Doing this will allow us to begin your dental treatment. It will help save you time if you are able to fill out the Patient Registration, Rights and Responsibilities from and have them ready when you arrive to your appointment. If you plan to use any dental insurance benefits, please bring your dental insurance cards with you to have a complementary benefit analysis.
Individualized Patient Care
Your initial exam will last approximately 60 minutes once the initial paper work is completed. Early childhood visits (Age 5 and under) will approximately be 30-50 minutes, depending on the needs of your child. Oral Hygiene instructions will be provided along with suggestions to help care for your teeth. In most cases, we will intend to clean your teeth at this visit, and provide an evaluation that will outline your existing dental problems and proposed treatment. Since many of our patients have different levels of needs, we cannot promise patients will receive a cleaning without a proper diagnosis. Below are descriptions of what will take place the first time we see you as our patient!
Health History
First we will sit down and review your health and dental history, we ask important questions about your general health, because your mouth is the gateway to your overall health, and is associated with a lot of conditions such as heart disease, and diabetes. Once we review your overall health and dental history we will move on to Radiographs.
Radiographs
Radiographs are essential to both the Doctor and your Hygienist to fully understand your dental diagnosis. There are several types of radiographs that are taken in the dental world. When you are a new patient we will collect a series of radiographs called a Full Mouth Series which is a combination of 4 Bitewing radiographs (Yearly Radiographs) and 14 Periapical radiographs, typically this is done once at the beginning of you becoming a new patient and is a baseline of your dental health. Once those are established we will take 4 Bitewing radiographs yearly to monitor for decay in-between the teeth and monitor for bone loss. Periodical radiographs are typically taken if you have a tooth issue arise and as needed prescribed by the Doctor. The other radiograph we take is called a panoramic radiograph which is a single 2D image outlining the entire mouth, including upper and lower jaws and surrounding structures and tissues. Panoramic radiographs are taken once every 5 years. Below are examples of those types of radiographs.
Scan and Photos
Next, we will take a Intra-Oral Digital scan of you teeth, and take any intra oral photographs of your teeth to allow us to have a digital model of your teeth for dental treatment that may be needed. The scan takes only a few minutes and is completely pain free. The photos are "Camera-Like Photos" that take pictures of your teeth at a closer view for your and your dental team to see.
Exam and Cleaning
From the data collected above, your dental team can treat you and your dental health at the most highest level! We will evaluate the need for dental treatment, and discuss your type of cleaning you will need. IF time remains, and your diagnosis is for a regular cleaning, we will then proceed with your cleaning that same day. IF your diagnosis is more involved we will go over in detail all the findings noted and discuss the best treatment for your needs.
