Your First Appointment

Your first appointment with Dr. Rich may very well be unlike any other dental appointment you have ever had before. We set aside 60 to 90 minutes of time for your first visit to our office. During that time, Dr. Rich will certainly examine your teeth and gums, but she will also spend a great deal of that time listening to your concerns and history in order to understand as much about your individual health goals as she can. Clinical exams and x-rays can only tell us so much. Your unique perspective on your own body is an important part of the healthcare partnership that we strive to create. We want to be certain that we have as much time as we need to discuss any concerns, hopes, or fears that you may have about your dental health.

In order to help us discover all the pieces that could be contributing to, or affected by, the health of your mouth, we will provide you with some questions to think about before you come in for your appointment. For the first 20 to 30 minutes of your appointment, we will use the information you have gathered on those forms as a place to begin our conversation about your dental concerns and goals. With your permission, we will then update any x-rays or diagnostic photos that may be needed before proceeding on to the clinical portion of the exam.

The exam itself will likely include elements you have experienced in other dental offices before, with the inclusion of a few others that you may be new to you. Dr. Rich will begin the examination with a thorough palpation of the muscles and lymph nodes in the head and neck area. An oral cancer exam will then follow, along with a thorough examination of each individual tooth, the surrounding gums, and supporting bone. Dr. Rich will also evaluate your smile, the way your teeth fit together, and the health of your temporomandibular joints (TMJ).

Throughout the exam, Dr. Rich will offer information about her discoveries. This information might include details about what is healthy and working well, as well as details about any potentially damaging processes that might be present. Our goal is to minimize dental surprises. Unexpected things do happen, but much of the breakdown of old dentistry is predictable, even if the exact timeline cannot be pinned down. By giving our patients all the information about potentially damaged or weakened conditions in the mouth, we hope to allow each patient the choice to address these issues proactively. A broken tooth is not just inconvenient, it can also be costly. Depending on how the tooth breaks, your restorative options may be limited in comparison to the options that might have been available to you before the breakage occurred.

After the full examination is complete, a consultation may be scheduled to further discuss the findings. A separate consultation is not always necessary, but in some cases Dr. Rich may want more time to thoroughly review your records and x-rays before discussing the final diagnoses and presenting treatment options. All new patients will be mailed a detailed written report of the conditions present at the initial exam. Please know that even if you chose not to schedule a new patient consultation at your exam, you are always welcome to request one if you discover that you have more questions or concerns once you review the written synopsis of our findings.

a note about dental cleanings

You may have noticed that a dental cleaning is not listed anywhere in the description of your first appointment. In general, we do not perform a cleaning in combination with your first dental exam. This may sound unusual, but there are some very good reasons behind it.

Periodontal conditions can change very rapidly in the mouth – sometimes even in a matter of weeks. Inflammation and bleeding may often go unnoticed because the beginning stages of gum disease are generally painless. Even within the scope of a regular six-month cleaning, different tools and lengths of time are required to adequately address the different conditions present in each person’s mouth. Once a full examination of your teeth and gums has been performed, we can then determine what type and length of cleaning will best meet your needs.