First Visit

Things to remember before your visit:

• Bring the blue referral slip with you, if one was given to you by your Dentist.
• Please bring an updated medication list.
• Remember to bring any X-Rays with you that your Dentist may have given you.
• If you are a new patient, try to arrive a few minutes early so that you have time to complete the necessary paperwork.
• Remember to take any necessary premedication approximately 1 hour prior to your appointment (if applicable).
• If you have been seen previously for a consultation, and are returning for a procedure under sedation, remember to have nothing to eat or drink after midnight on the night before, and bring someone with you who can drive you home.
• Children under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or legal both for the consultation and surgical appointments.

We want to make your visit with us as smooth and pleasant as possible. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to make your time in our office more comfortable.

X-Rays

For the majority of procedures performed in the office, a satisfactory x-ray is necessary, to adequately diagnose and treat your condition. Patients are often given x-rays by their referring Dentist, and these are often perfectly adequate for us to use. There are times however, where the x-ray that has been supplied is not adequate to properly visualize the area in question. In this case, it may be necessary to take another similar film, or in many cases, a larger more comprehensive x-ray called a Panorex, may be necessary to visualize all necessary structures. Please remember to bring any x-ray films that your Dentist has supplied with you at the time of your appointment.  If your dentist or physician has taken digital x-rays, they may be able to send them via e-mail, but you may wish to cal them to make sure that they have been sent the day prior to your appointment

CT Scans

Occasionally for complex implant cases or pathology involving the bone, a CT scan may be required.  The CT scanner is located directly across the hall from our office in the Bethesda Health City Radiology Center. Once the scan has been completed, the data is sent to a processing center, where the data is converted to a format that we can use in our computer program.  This program allows us to look at the scan in 3 dimensions, with accuracy to a fraction of a millimeter.  This is especially useful when we are planning implants, as we can actually place the implants on the computer simulation software, and visualize exactly what the bone will look like at the time of the surgery, and measure very precisely the quantity and position of the bone so that we can avoid anatomic structures such as nerves and sinuses that may be difficult to evaluate with traditional two dimensional x-rays.

Emergency Patients

If you have pain or an emergency situation, every attempt will be made to see you that day.  We try our best to stay on schedule to minimize your waiting.  The nature of our practice is such that we are frequently called  upon to treat patients on an emergency basis, who are in pain, and require urgent treatment. We are usually able to see these patients in a timely fashion in the office with minimal disruption of the normal schedule.  We intentionally leave time in the schedule to accommodate these patients, with minimal disruption of our office routine. There are times however, that we may be delayed slightly in seeing our regularly scheduled patients because of these emergency cases. We respect our patient's time, and every effort is made to minimize the delay in these rare circumstances.