The question often comes up on why someone needs to see a periodontal office for their cleanings instead of the general office they visit for their routine care. After all, both offices have hygienists capable of cleaning teeth, so why not just go to one place that takes care of all the dental needs? The answer is impacted by the specific needs of each person, but there are also reasons that apply to almost everyone.

Costs for dental procedures are really about the time a procedure requires to complete. The time needed for a procedure is translated into an hourly cost and that sets the fee. The typical dental cleaning is usually centered around an hour of time with the hygienist. In that hour, the hygienist is responsible for checking the current oral and periodontal health, performing an oral cancer screening, updating any changes in overall health or dental health, assessing the status of existing fillings, identifying teeth that appear to have decay for the dentist to check and cleaning somewhere around 28 teeth with 4 sides that require cleaning sometimes deep under the gums. The time for actually cleaning the teeth, is reduced by all of these other tasks and over time can allow tartar to build up in difficult areas that then lead to bone loss. When a periodontal office is involved, the tasks of cleaning the teeth and evaluating, tracking, and treating periodontal concerns, becomes the primary responsibility of the periodontal office and it frees the general office to focus on the primary responsibility of monitoring restorations and decay.

Dental hygienists, are just like other workers. They all receive the same basic training, but then their daily responsibilities and tasks develop their skills and provide the experience they use to accomplish those tasks. A periodontal hygienist spends their entire day cleaning teeth for patients with more advanced periodontal concerns. These patients often have areas that are very hard to get to for cleaning and require extra time and sometimes special skills or equipment. As experience is gained from these more difficult cleanings, the patients with advanced disease all benefit and even patients with little or no disease, benefit from the added experienc. In the general office, the hygienists also see some of these more advanced disease patients, but it is a smaller proportion of the people they see, so it takes much longer to develop the experience and skills to do a thorough cleaning.

The hygienist in a periodontal office works very closely with the periodontist in the office. Over the years, the hygienist learns how to identify a developing problem and knows at what point the periodontist can help. Since bone loss in the mouth is still generally not reversible, this early awareness and treatment of a concern, often reduces the amount of treatment necessary and prevents the problem from escalating to a concern that causes significant irreversible damage and results in significant costs to manage. The periodontal hygienist also works closely with the general office to make sure they know a patient’s current periodontal condition, the treatment that has been performed and any concerns that need to be checked by the general office.

In this way, patients that have their teeth cleaned in a periodontal office, really have the best of both worlds. They have a highly trained and experienced periodontal team overseeing the health of the bone and gums and they have a highly trained and experienced restorative team watching out for the health of the teeth and restorations.

If you would like to have your oral health evaluated by a periodontal specialist, please feel free to contact our office.
 

Added on 07/20/2011

Filed Under

No comments have been added yet to this post.

Post a comment - top

Please register to leave a comment.