Dentaltown January 2017 - 50

office
visit
I mentioned earlier. This allows us to alleviate
any unnecessary traffic at check-out. The days
can get hectic at times, but our huddle slips
help to make our transitions from department
to department a lot smoother.

Let's talk about once you start seeing
patients. How hard is it to balance
the amount of time you have with the
level of attention to detail you feel
each patient deserves?
I get about 50-60 minutes for an adult
patient, 30-40 minutes for a child patient,
and about 90 minutes for an SRP patient. I
try to have the hygiene portion of a patient's
visit done so that when I call the dentist in
for an exam, it's about 10-15 minutes until
the next patient is to be seated.
This allows me to have enough time to
have the patient's clinical exam done by the
dentist, any findings discussed, photos taken,
treatment recommended, time for patient
questions, have fluoride applied to the patient's
teeth, have any referrals printed up by the front
desk (so that it's ready to present as soon as
the patient goes up to check out), schedule
the next hygiene appointment, complete my
clinical notes, and turn my room around in
time for the next patient's seating.
The entire process is very time-sensitive
and I am always racing with the clock. You
can imagine at the end of the morning how
many steps we take to ensure that every detail
to the patient's visit is tended to, and that
doesn't even include all the steps of the hygiene
portion of the visit.

What's it like being under that kind of
time constraint, day-in and day-out?
Keeping in mind that I allow about 10-15
minutes for the second half of the patient's visit
for everything else, that leaves me about 35-45
minutes of hygiene time, which is reserved
for a pre-rinse, medical and dental history
updates, listening to any chief complaints,
updating radiographs, performing an extraand intraoral exam, recording periodontal
probings, performing the prophylaxis hand and
ultrasonic/piezon instrumentation, irrigating
any areas of infection, reviewing oral hygiene
instructions, recommending any necessary

50

products, taking any intraoral photos, and
answering any patient's questions.
There are so many details to pay attention
to and document that by the end of the day
that when all is done, it's hard to believe how
much gets accomplished-and all the while
manage the entire visit within the time frame.
There are instances when there is no time
for the mind to process what's going on because

TOP 5 PRODUCTS
A-dec. Their chairs and delivery units are, in
my opinion, the best-built dental chairs and
units. We visited their factory with a group
of Townies and I knew then it was a terrific
company.
3M Ketac Universal Aplicap. We just started
using this new glass ionomer restorative
and it's a vast improvement over glass ionomers we've used in the past. The handling
of this material is smooth, and we love
capsule materials for their consistent mix.
Dentrix. Practice management software
is the hub of any dental practice, and the
features available to us through Dentrix
allowed us to go chartless many years ago.
Plus, digitally managing the paper documents we still receive from specialists and
insurance companies has been incredible.
Intraoral camera. Photographs of dental
conditions are an indispensable part of
treatment planning presentations. There's
something worth photographing on every
patient.
Monolithic zirconia. Specifically, BruxZir
and 3M's Lava Zirconia are two examples
of a great alternative to full gold crowns
on second molars. There are now several
very aesthetic versions available that make
zirconia-based restorations an option for
almost any situation.
- Dr. Thomas Giacobbi

Continued on p. 52

JANUARY 2017 // dentaltown.com
http://www.dentaltown.com
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Dentaltown January 2017
