The health care bill just passed. No doubt this brings mixed emotions for a lot of you. I just wanted to let you know about some changes that you can expect on the dental side of things.

A lot of people talk about the massive changes that will take affect regarding health insurance, but lest we forget, dental insurance is wrapped up in the bill as well.

The ADHA has worked closely with lawmakers to help shape the bill. So how did it turn out? Here’s a quote from an article posted by www.medicalnewstoday.com about the bill:

“HR. 3590 contains a number of oral health provisions including a mandatory oral health benefit for children (up to age 21) as part of any essential benefits package offered through health insurance exchanges called for in the bill. The legislation also recognizes dental hygienists as primary oral health providers through the inclusion of dental hygiene providers, students, and education programs as eligible entities for workforce development funds. Additionally, the legislation provides for 15 demonstration grants to train or employ alternative dental health care providers to evaluate emerging workforce models that improve access to oral health care. Public health dental hygienists, independent dental hygienists, advanced practice dental hygienists, and dental therapist models are listed models eligible for the grants.”

The ADHA published a PDF that breaks down the impact the bill will have on dental hygiene. You can download the PDF here.

We get this question all the time. Most dentists will give you a list over very intimidating and altogether depressing facts about people’s teeth rotting out of their faces. That’s no fun. Everyone knows that ignoring your teeth is a bad idea and therefore bad things can happen.

So here’s my take on the issue. It’s probably not what you think. I’m not going to scare you with diseases or disorders.

1. Once your teeth are damaged, there’s no undo button. Once the damage is done, it’s done. The crazy thing is that you can’t feel the damage while it’s happening. You just have to prevent it. If you’re not careful, it can sneak up on you. Remember, you only have one set of teeth. Yes, we can repair teeth with artificial means, but once your tooth is fixed or removed, there’s no going back. They don’t grow back. That’s incentive enough for me to keep my dental hygiene up. I don’t want to lose or damage my own teeth.
2. Most people hang their confidence on their smile. Imagine if you were having a great day. You leave the house with a big smile on your face. You get to where you’re going, still with that same smile on your face. Even so, every person you meet looks the other way or giggles when they see you. That hurts, and it soon wipes the smile off your face. What’s going on? Your good day turns in to a difficult day. It all had to do with how people reacted to your smile. All along, you had a piece of spinach in your teeth. Your smile makes a big difference. You won’t want to lose that smile of yours.

Those are just two of the major reasons why I think it’s important to go to the dentist. There are lots of others but these to me are most important. If you feel like it’s been a while since you’ve been to the dentist, come see us.

Out of all the things that we hear as dentists, one of the most common is that the dentist office is supposed to be dull and boring. Hmmm… Remember those bad dates in high school or college when there was an awkward pause in the conversation… and the next thing out of his mouth was, “So, uh, what’s your favorite color?” Yeah, that’s a classic. You won’t get that at Total Care Dental.

I can imagine that it’s just pure torture sitting in the spotlight on a dental chair unable to move a muscle with your mouth stinted open and cruel drills buzzing in your ear. If you add a dull and boring conversation to the mix, I don’t think torture would do it justice. Yikes.

We try to keep a smile on your face, even if it’s difficult to smile with three hands that aren’t yours in your mouth. Try us on for size and see what you think. You might be disappointed that the dentist isn’t as boring as you were hoping.

In case you missed it, this is what the office looked like. One thing is for sure, it won’t look like this when we’re done We’re fighting back y’all!

We have just returned from a great meeting for the American Dental Society of Anesthesiology (ASDA). It was in Las Vegas, and we learned a lot. We try and get to as many conferences and dental events that we can because it’s important to us that we’re on top of all the new trends and advances in our trade.

The entire Total Care Dental team attended, and we improved our skills in administering IV sedation to our patients. The ADSA is the only organization in dentistry that focuses on improving skills in sedation. They had some great speakers, and we learned many techniques to improve the patient’s experience while receiving IV sedation. We have been members for several years, and our goal is to help our patients have the most comfortable dental experience anywhere, at an affordable price.