Learn How to Assess Your Patients’ Orthodontic Status

Asses your patients orthodontic status

Want to give your patients the best possible care?

As a general dentist, ensuring that your patients’ orthodontic needs are met is an important part of their overall dental care. Whether your practice offers orthodontic treatment or you refer these cases to orthodontists, patients will rely on you to carry out the orthodontic assessment needed to identify the need for treatment.

Understanding how to properly evaluate your patients orthodontic status to determine when orthodontic treatment is needed can be a challenge. Orthodontic seminars for general dentists can provide insight into orthodontic assessment and address the key areas necessary to give your patients the best possible care.

What to Check During an Orthodontic Assessment

Whether during a routine dental exam or in response to some specific dental issue, assessing your patients orthodontic status is necessary to identify a wide range of potential problems. A thorough evaluation should focus on both facial and dental indicators to ensure that all areas of concern are identified.

There are many different bite issues that can be readily identified through an orthodontic assessment, such as overbite, underbite, and crossbite. Other indicators, like lip posture and mandibular alignment, are also important to note. In children, articulation issues are also common signs of orthodontic problems.

An orthodontic assessment also involves checking the spacing and angle of teeth. Dentists must understand the various spacing issues that arise at different stages of life so they can properly identify developmental issues like irregular eruption or crowding. Identifying these concerns as early as possible can greatly improve a patient’s treatment experience and outcome.

Determining Probable Treatment Needs

Once a potential dental issue has been identified, a dentist should be able to determine probable treatment needs. Even if you plan on referring patients to an orthodontist, being able to provide an overview of the issue and likely courses of action are important.

If a dentist is not able to properly communicate treatment needs, their patients may be left worried about their orthodontic issues. In the same breath, they might not understand the seriousness of this issue at hand and avoid going through with treatment.

There are many factors that can impact probable treatment needs for any given patient. The classification of the malocclusion and the nature of any specific issue play a significant role. However, a patient’s age, developmental stage, and overall dental health are just as important.

Communicating with Patients

Patients are likely to have a wide range of questions about their orthodontic issues, potential treatment options, and outcomes. Having a solid foundation of orthodontic knowledge is necessary to be able to answer these questions.

Developing that knowledge allows dentists to communicate these details more confidently. Your patients will feel more reassured and will be more likely to go through with recommended orthodontic treatments, ultimately providing them with better outcomes.

The Benefits of Ortho Courses for General Dentists

Orthodontic seminars for general dentists and other continuing education options can expand your knowledge base and skills when conducting orthodontic assessments. They provide a solid foundation from which dentists can confidently identify, evaluate, and discuss orthodontic issues.

With the right ortho courses for general dentists, adding orthodontic treatments to your practice is an option. These courses can give general dentists the training and skills necessary to treat 70% to 80% of orthodontic cases. A referral is still required for more complex cases, and the courses also provide the knowledge to make that determination.

Even if you do not intend to offer orthodontic treatment options at this time, orthodontic courses make doing so an option in the future. Providing orthodontic treatment can be highly fulfilling as you and your patients take note of progress, and it also creates a new revenue stream for your practice.

Offering orthodontic treatments also improves the experience for your patients. Being able to access a wider range of services through the same practice lets patients stay with a dentist they’re already familiar with, creating a better overall patient experience.

Build a Solid Foundation for Orthodontic Care

Whether you intend to start offering orthodontic treatments at your practice or not, ortho courses for general dentists can be a great investment. They can make you and your staff more capable when carrying out assessments of your patients orthodontic status and leave the door open for implementing treatment options in the future. Synergy Orthodontic Seminars provides a wide range of continuing education opportunities. You can reach out today to find out more.

Synergy Orthodontic Seminars

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