A Parent’s Guide to Emergency Dental Care

Posted on: 29 December 2016

Have you recently moved and so need to find a new dentist? Have you always used the same dentist as your parents, so you're not sure how to choose one? Finding a good dentist isn't a complicated matter. However, finding a dentist that is right for you and your situation can be more difficult. To help you pick out the best dentist for you, there are some questions to ask before you even set foot in the office. A few of these questions include:

What dental insurance plans do you accept? If you already have a dental insurance plan, you may have been given a booklet that lists all of the dentists in the area who provide dental services to people with your insurance company. Unfortunately, these booklets and the insurance company's website may not have been updated recently. If a dentist has decided not to accept a certain type of insurance within the past few weeks, the insurance company may still have him or her listed as a services provider. Asking before you even set foot in the office will help you to avoid the hassle of arriving for your appointment, only to find out that you either have to cancel your appointment or pay out of pocket to see the dentist.

What are your office hours? Although the sign outside or the dentist's website might give the office hours as one thing, it's possible that the hours have changed for a variety of reasons and that information hasn't been updated left. If a particular dentist has left the office and no longer offers any dental services there, they may have temporarily scaled back the hours until they can find a replacement. Similarly, if the office is looking to expand, they may have added additional hours that are more convenient for you. The only way to find out this information may be to call up the office and ask. 

Do you offer emergency services or are you partners with an office that does? If you suddenly chip a filling in the middle of the night, the last thing that you need to do while you're in pain is to try to find a dentist who can see you. Ideally, you should find an office that offers emergency dental services before you actually need them, but not everyone remembers to do this or remembers which emergency office that they've chosen later on down the road. If your regular dentist either offers emergency services or has an agreement with an office that does, all you may need to do in case of an emergency is to dial your usual dentist. You should either get your dentist's after-hours call service or a recording that tells you which emergency dentist to contact. Consider starting here J R Gassman DDS