When a new patient first comes into Crown Dentistry, what is your primary goal?
When a new patient first comes into our office, our primary goal is to make that person feel as comfortable as possible. That simply means figuring out what's important to them, figuring out why they're here, and figuring out how we can help them.
Sometimes people come in, and they're in pain. Obviously, we want to try to locate that pain and see what we can do to help them feel better. Sometimes people come in, and they're scared or anxious. We want to do our best to meet them where they're at and try to calm their fears and let them know that we're here to help them and take care of them. Sometimes people come in feeling great, and they just want to make sure that everything's okay in their mouth and the rest of their body, and we can definitely help them with that as well.
How do you approach patient care and communication at Crown Dentistry?
Here at Crown Dentistry, we try to be as transparent as possible. We're trying to be upfront with you as the patient. I know that there are a lot of things you might have questions about, and there are a lot of things going on in dental offices. We just want to be upfront and tell you what we're about and what's important to us.
What's important to us is figuring out what's important to you as a patient. We just want to be upfront about that. We also want to let you know that we're just here to help you, and there's no pressure to get anything or buy anything. We just want to let you know this is what's going on with you as a patient and what's going on inside your mouth. Most of the time, we can do something to help you, and if we can, then we'll let you know how that can go.
Sometimes there are things that are beyond my scope, beyond my knowledge base, and my expertise. In those cases, we will work with you to do our best to find someone who can help you. That's our promise and our pledge.
How do you help patients who are nervous or afraid of the dentist?
We get a lot of patients who come in nervous and afraid. Maybe they've had some bad experiences at the dentist in the past. Maybe they have a hard time getting anesthetized when they've had work done. Maybe past dentists either weren't sensitive to their needs and wants, or maybe they were just having a hard time with a procedure on a particular day.
We understand every part of that here at Crown Dentistry. A number of our patients have definitely had bad experiences in the past, and they're anxious and nervous as a result. We want to do our best to try to allay your fears and let you know that we're here to take care of you, and we're going to do our best to get you through whatever needs to be done in order to make you healthy.
We offer different options for patients who may need a little bit more treatment to help them take care of their anxiety, fear, and nervousness. We offer different levels of sedation. Those are just different things that we can do to make it so that you can still get the work done that you need done as a patient, but you don't have to worry about the anxiety and nervousness because, essentially, what we'll do is help you relax more. I don't ever tell people that I'm necessarily going to put them to sleep. Sometimes people do fall asleep when they are sedated. There are different levels of sedation that we can offer in order to make you more comfortable.
What happens if a patient calls or comes in with tooth pain?
Sometimes people call us or come in, and they're in pain. Either they have an infection, or their tooth is broken, or something's going on with previous dental work. Our first goal, of course, is to figure out exactly what's going on and to try to gather information first before we recommend or diagnose any treatment or modalities to try to get you out of pain. First of all, it's trying to figure out what's going on. That's the first step.
Then the second step is to figure out what we can do and how we can actually treat what's bothering you and get you out of pain. Sometimes that involves procedures like a root canal, an extraction, fillings, crowns, or any of those things. Sometimes it's the prescription of antibiotics. Sometimes it's a combination of all these things. Again, all of it starts with gathering information and making a good, accurate diagnosis to start with, and everything proceeds from there.
What can a patient expect after the first appointment?
After your first appointment, it usually involves taking some dental X-rays, taking some photos, and also meeting with me so that I can take a look inside your mouth and look at your photos and your X-rays. Taking all these things together helps us come up with a comprehensive plan for you and your mouth. Best-case scenario, things are healthy, and hopefully, with your help, we can keep them that way.
Sometimes it doesn't go like that. Sometimes there's something wrong. There's either an infection, cavities, something's broken, or maybe your teeth aren't in the state, position, or appearance you want them to be. In that case, we can talk about steps to help make your goals and dreams a reality, whether that's getting your smile back or achieving a pain-free, healthy mouth.
What I want to try to do is set out a plan to make sure that we can get things healthy and get your mouth to where you want it to be. It might involve treatment recommendations and/or working with outside specialists if needed. But as I said, hopefully we can do most or all of the treatment here in our office. Anyway, the goal would be to have a clear plan laid out so that we know what the next steps are and that you, as a patient, will know what the next steps are.
What goes into a dental treatment plan?
There are a lot of things that can potentially go into a dental treatment plan. We obviously need to assess where you are as the patient, where you and your mouth are now. Then we also have to look at where you want to be. We want to be as clear and comprehensive as possible when we're getting a treatment plan laid out. We want to be clear about different treatment options.
In dentistry, there's rarely just one way to solve a problem. We want to lay out the different options and the pros and cons of each. Almost every option in dentistry has pros and cons, so we want to try to be as upfront about that as possible.
After we've gotten that laid out and ironed out, we also want to talk about the financial and front-office side of things. That might involve coordinating benefits with insurance, or, if there's no insurance, which is, of course, totally fine as well. We want to talk about potentially outside financing options or potentially payment plans, all these things. We'll also look at options for doing that. But either way, we want to basically be working toward the end goal of getting your mouth healthy, getting your mouth into the place that you want it to be.
You’re never alone in caring for your dental health. At Crown Dentistry, our team is here to support and meet you where you are in your dental journey. Call (916) 848-2145 or email [email protected] to connect with us today.