Continued from our last blog “Questions to ask your dentist”
- Do they use a rubber dam to decrease bacteria entering the drill site?
If you are having any kind of surgical procedure one this is a must! If you ask your dentist and the answer is “no” we suggest you find another dentist. Decreasing bacteria in the mouth is vital to your oral and overall health when having any kinds of surgical procedure done.
- Do they have equipment on site to make crowns in-house in the same day or do they have to outsource their crowns to a lab and thus turn a dental crown into two visits instead of one.
Time vs Value… Everyone’s time is valuable. As much as every Dentist love to see you, why have 2 appointments when you can have one (with the desired result!)
- How thorough is their hygienist? What are the periodontal and gingivitis rates for their long-term patients who’ve been seeing the same hygienist?
The answer to this is: How long are hygiene visits scheduled? At Oasis we book all hygiene visits for a full hour. Other practices may book for half the time, so you’ll want to make sure your hygienist has enough time to do a thorough clean. Our hygienist’s use a special dye to check to see your own brushing habits and how long plaque has been sitting on the teeth. Hygienists should be cleaning not only the part of the tooth we can see, but also taking the time to get under the gum line.
- Are you taking intraoral photos to show patients the issues?
The second part of this question is “Why is it important to take intraoral photos?” How can an issue be diagnosed correctly from the outside? Well, it can’t be. For a patient to be diagnosed correctly the Dentist needs to “scratch below the surface” to diagnose and discuss accurately.
We hope these questions have added insight and questionable purpose to your next visit to see the Dentist.
