First Visit
We look forward to meeting you on your first visit to our office.
During this first appointment, we will help you get acquainted with our office and staff and discuss your orthodontic treatment. We will answer five essential questions during our time together:
- Is there an orthodontic problem, and if so, what is it?
- What can be done to correct the problem?
- Will any teeth need to be removed?
- Approximately how long will the treatment take?
- How much will the treatment cost and does your insurance provide benefits?
Complimentary exam:
What is it and why is it important?
As recommended by the American Association of Orthodontists, we encourage seeing patients initially between 7-8 years of age. This gives us the opportunity to establish baseline growth data and to prevent, recognize, or treat problems that could have detrimental effects.
An additional benefit to an early visit is the opportunity to establish communication with the patient’s dentist and the family in preparation for future visits. It is important to note that initial exams and ongoing supervisory return visits are complimentary. We embrace prevention and conservative treatment and the only way to effectively do this is with ongoing supervision.
Our goal is to support healthy dentitions, facilitate facial growth and development, and to provide lifelong smiles.
We can frequently identify a need at an early age prior to eruption of all the permanent teeth. This need may be called Phase 1 treatment and it is either preventive and/or corrective based. It might involve something as simple as an orthodontic space maintainer to manage space for unerupted teeth or involve an orthopedic growth-related appliance to facilitate harmonious facial growth. Growth-related appliances are often recommended prior to or sometimes during the adolescent growth spurt.