We hope you are considering choosing Oak Family Dental to be your new dental home. If so, that means you will need to have a new patient visit to establish your care.
What To Expect On Your First Visit
In order for us to take the best possible care of you, we have to know a little bit about you. You will find a link to our New Patient Form above. You can fill out the form and email it to us or print and bring it in with you.
This will allow you to fill out this information before you come in. This is not required, but many patients like to have this done before they come in to save a little time. It’s a pretty basic form that asks for simple information, similar to any other initial appointment with a medical professional. It’s important for us to know all about your medical and dental history so that we can custom tailor your experience! After your paperwork is completed, we will review our consent and policy forms with you.
Once all of this administrative stuff is done, we can get to the fun! One of our clinical team members will take over from here. The first step in your clinical visit is to obtain the appropriate digital dental radiographs. Digital radiographs are preferred because they give you a much lower dose of radiation and are much faster and more comfortable. Once these are obtained, it is time to document your dental history and the health of your gums. This information is held in your secure, encrypted digitized record.
About 90% of new patients in our office get their teeth cleaned by one of our amazing hygienists at their initial visit. Sometimes a routine dental cleaning is not the correct treatment for you, so in those situations we will discuss your options and help you make the best decision. In cases where your initial visit with us is to address a dental emergency, a cleaning is usually not performed at the first visit. We like to resolve the emergency before moving on to preventive dental care in that situation. Regardless, we routinely receive rave reviews about our hygienist Karen, so rest assured that your teeth will feel clean and sparkling after your cleaning!
Next, its time to meet Dr. Schmidgall. He will perform a comprehensive dental exam that includes examination of your teeth, gums, jaw bones, and soft tissue. In addition, an oral cancer screening and cosmetic evaluation will be performed. He will review all of his findings with you and answer any questions you may have about your oral health.
A new patient visit in our office usually takes 90 minutes or less and is very comfortable. We hope that this visit serves as the beginning of a long and caring relationship with you!