Welcome to our practice!

We have made our New Patient forms available on our website for your convenience. You can fill them out ahead of time and bring them in for your New Patient Exam. We usually mail them out to our New Patients ahead of time, but emergencies and last minute appointments do not give us enough time to send them.

Our New Patient Exam is actually several exams combined. All New Patients receive an oral cancer screening exam, a phase contrast microscopy exam of the bacteria in the gums, a periodontal probing exam (gum exam), and an occlusal exam (checking the bite and orientation of the teeth, checking the function of the jaw joint). We also thoroughly examine your teeth and existing dental work. Digital X-rays are taken, as well as close-up pictures of your teeth and fillings to show you any problems which we find. The New Patient exam also includes a 10 minute video which explains a lot of what we do.

A New Patient exam generally takes about an hour to an hour and a half. We try to put together a treatment plan for you immediately following the exam, but for complex cases with multiple treatment options we will schedule a subsequent consultation appointment with you to discuss your case. Complex cases require a lot of thought and careful planning; rushing them is not doing anyone any good. We believe that educating our patients will help them to make the right decision for themselves and we will spend as much time as is needed explaining your options to you.

We do not perform a cleaning at the new patient exam because we really don't know what type of hygiene appointment someone needs until we complete a comprehensive exam of their gums. Patients who have gum disease and are in need of scaling and root planing (deep cleaning) will require bacterial testing and antibiotics to prevent the infection in their gums from spreading to other areas of their body after the scaling and root planing appointment. Different types of cleaning require appointment times of different lengths; there is no way to set up a schedule to accomodate an unknown condition that a new patient may have.

If you are experiencing pain or an emergency situation, we will treat your emergency first and then schedule your New Patient Exam when things have settled down.

New Patient Forms

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Click here for Adults

Click here for Children

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