Scheduling & Insurance Information for Referring Doctors & Their Staff
When scheduling an appointment for a patient for treatment or an evaluation we ask that you have available the corresponding tooth or teeth #’s in question and whether or not those teeth have already had a root canal. It would be helpful to have the patient’s name, date of birth and insurance information. If the patient has insurance we ask that you can provide the insurance information so that we can check the insurance prior to the patients’ appointment. Please have the subscribers’ information ready if the patient is not the subscriber. We check each patient’s insurance information and collect co-pays at the time of treatment. We call each patient prior to their appointments and let them know of any co-pays that may be due. We accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, and CareCredit. WE DO NOT ACCEPT PERSONAL CHECKS. Patients with co-pays over $200 will receive 12 months interest-free if using a CareCredit card. For more information on CareCredit go to CareCredit.com or see our link in the Patient information – Insurance Information section of our website.
At our practice, we schedule for treatment to be started and completed the same day, if the tooth does not have a previous root canal. If your patient or doctor just wants an evaluation and does not want treatment the same day, we will schedule them for an evaluation only. They will have to return to the office on a different day, if treatment is needed. An evaluation is a clinical evaluation and X-rays, we do not open the tooth during an evaluation. There can be situations that arise that may delay the treatment being finished the same day and there may be situations that we may choose to do an evaluation only prior to treatment.
We schedule an evaluation for all patients who have a tooth that may need a retreatment. Our office policy is such due to insurance frequency limitations and the need for more time given at a treatment appointment for some retreatments, due to large post, repairs or restorative work that may become loose or fall off during retreatment cases. Sometimes we will ask a patient to coordinate an appointment the same day with their general dentist due to leaking crowns on anterior teeth.
Also, we do an evaluation first if the patient is under 17. We do not typically do treatment on children under the age of 13 without IV sedation. We require a consultation first if your patient has high anxiety and requires us to call in medications. We do not schedule patients for an apicoectomy without an evaluation first.
Any patient having routine endodontic treatment at our office will be given local anesthetic. We do not routinely give patients Nitrous gas, IV sedation or anti-anxiety medications. We work with a third party Ambulatory Anesthesia company for patients who wish to have IV sedation. A consultation with our office would be needed prior to IV sedation and additional information given to the patient about IV sedation and the cost is determined by the third-party group. The basic, estimated down payment starts at $500 and is not collected by our office.
If you have a patient that is in need of Nitrous, the cost of Nitrous gas is $85. If your patient requests Nitrous please let us know at the time the appointment is set up. We need extra time for Nitrous patients.
We can offer any patients with a higher level of anxiety a consultation prior to treatment. After the consultation, a medication to help them feel more comfortable during treatment can be called into their pharmacy. A consultation prior to a treatment appointment is necessary when prescribing anti-anxiety medications. At the consultation, we would have your patient meet the staff, go over all paperwork, take x-rays, collect or go over co-payments and get pharmacy information. We would then call in an anti-anxiety medication a day prior to the treatment appointment. Any patient taking the anti-anxiety medication must have a driver to and from the appointment on the day of the treatment.
If your patient is not a patient of record at our office we are unable to call in any pre-medications or any other medications.
We do take our own X-rays, pre-op, preliminary and post-operative. After treatment, we will send a letter to your office along with paper x-rays within 2 business days after treatment. If you would prefer the letter and x-ray to be sent by email, we would gladly accommodate your request. Please call our office and talk to the front desk coordinator to set up this service.
Please check our list of insurances, we are in-network with almost all PPO, DHMO and DMO plans. This list is available under Patient information- Insurance information.
If you are to refer a patient to our office with a DHMO or DMO plan, please make sure to send the INSURANCE referral form signed by your dentist. This is a must for us to get paid for any root canal treatment with DHMO and DMO plans. The INSURANCE referrals are different from our office to office referrals which are found on this page. We do not need an office to office referral to see your patients, they are just helpful to give us an idea of what you may have found during your examinations or any request that you may have. (Post space, evaluation of an additional tooth). We always exam the areas that are symptomatic before giving the patient any medications or anesthesia. If multiple teeth are in question, we will treat the tooth that is most symptomatic first.
We remind your patients multiple times verbally and in writing while in our office to call their restorative dentist and make an appointment. We ask that they start their restorative work in 2-4 weeks after treatment is completed. We will inform your office with a letter or an email that your patient was seen in our office. We always make a suggestion of a crown, if one is not already present. We aim to keep any current crowns intact and make the access as small as possible. If we believe the crown or restoration is leaking, we will make a suggestion to the patient to have a new restoration placed. Ultimately, it is up to the patient and the restoring dentist to decide the type of permanent restoration. We will remind the patient that the temporary filling we placed must be removed and a more permanent restoration must be done within 4 weeks to prevent contamination. We do not perform courtesy retreatments on patients who neglect to have their restorative work done in a timely manner. Most patients are symptomatic on the tooth that has endodontic treatment for a few weeks. We recommend Advil for 2-3 days after treatment and most of our patients are given Clindamycin 300 TID to help clear up lingering bacteria and assist with the healing process.
Please call our office is you have any additional questions or suggestions. Columbus Office Phone Number 614-488-3333