Josh Bernstein, DDS, Cosmetic Dentist

Back in dental school, my classmates and I would constantly complain that we were only seeing 2 patients in the morning and 2 patients in the afternoon and that new patient exams were so exhaustive that they took forever.

Interestingly enough, after 22 years in practice, we are still spending a lot of time on new patient consults and exams.  And we are still seeing very few patients.  Why?

New patient consults and exams are some of the most valuable visits in our dental office.  It is during these visits that we find out exactly what each patient wants and what we can do to provide it.  Rather than schedule new patients for a cleaning, we spend over an hour getting to know each person and their individual situation.

It starts with a meeting in the consultation room where we just talk.  I want to make sure that each person has a chance to fully communicate what they want.  Then we do a comprehensive dental exam where we look at the teeth, the gums, the bite, the chewing muscles, the jaw joint, and tissue health (oral cancer screening).

After the exam, we take a complete set of clinical photographs and look at them together to discover more of what is going on.  Looking at the photographs is an eye opener!  Many dental patients (including our patients who are dentists!) have never seen the inside of their own mouths!

Seeing the photographs in combination with the information we have already collected allows us to have a meaningful discussion about the choices that are available to each individual patient.  Whether or not a new patient decides to work with us, every new patient leaves with a good understanding about what is going on in his or her mouth.