http://dentistry.healthliberty.org Just another Health Liberty weblog Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:46:34 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en One of the biggest stumbling blocks to offering quality esthetic dentistry is the mistaken belief that your patients will not pay for it. I once had a patient who was a bricklayer and who was dissatisfied with his smile. I spent a considerable amount of time trying to educate ... http://dentistry.healthliberty.org/fees/ Treatment planning is not complete until the patient makes a final decision about accepting treatment. However, follow-through by the treatment coordinator is necessary throughout your patient's treatment. Any proposed changes to your treatment plan must involve your treatment coordinator. In fact, if your proposed changes affect your fee, then ... http://dentistry.healthliberty.org/continuous-communication/ There are several precautions to take if you elect to treat problem patients. One, be prepared to spend much more time in diagnosis. The best way to handle patients who have difficulty communicating what they want is to schedule several diagnostic sessions. Use different approaches to attempt to understand ... http://dentistry.healthliberty.org/how-to-treat-problem-patients-%e2%80%a6-and-keep-your-staff-sane/ This is another potential problem patient that can be overlooked if your diagnostic time is too short. Frequently, this patient presents with poor dentistry or no restorative dentistry at all. Hygiene is either nonexistent or inadequate at best. They will vociferously complain about a previous dentist and staff. The ... http://dentistry.healthliberty.org/uncooperative-patient/ There is nothing wrong with patients who are limited in the amount of money they can invest in their dental treatment. In fact, this may make up the majority of your patients. However, proceed cautiously with the budget-conscious patient who has extremely high esthetic expectations. Rather than having a ... http://dentistry.healthliberty.org/high-expectationslimited-budget/ These are the patients who cannot communicate what they want because they do not themselves know what they want. They may show you a picture of exactly what they want, but when they eventually see it in their mouth, they may be terribly disappointed. Even study models with wax-ups may ... http://dentistry.healthliberty.org/poor-communicator/ This patient has the highest standard of esthetic excellence. Unless you are willing to spend an inordinate amount of diagnostic and treatment time with this patient, you are much better off, emotionally and financially, making an early decision to refer this patient. Deciding to treat this type of patient may ... http://dentistry.healthliberty.org/the-perfectionist/ The final case presentation should be a carefully prepared, easily understood treatment plan. Visual aids, before and after photographs, slides, models, intra- and extraoral video and computer imaging, and examples of the procedures to be used assist in communicating the possibilities and limitations of esthetic treatment. These are three ... http://dentistry.healthliberty.org/the-final-case-presentation/ Too often a dentist, impatient to begin treatment, fails to stress the importance of the patient consulting a specialist. For instance, dentists often do not emphasize the functional objectives of tooth repositioning, and consequently may not motivate patients to seek orthodontic treatment that might prevent bone loss later in ... http://dentistry.healthliberty.org/consulting-a-specialist/ A preliminary treatment plan should definitely be formulated and it is also prudent to use an organized form on which to place these clinical recommendations. Although it may be revised considerably, different alternatives should be considered before the second appointment. A quadrant-by-quadrant outline of functional necessities with a separate ... http://dentistry.healthliberty.org/preparation-of-a-preliminary-treatment-plan/