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As if there was just ONE problem LOL…Dental Insurance gets more confusing every year. The main thing to remember is that insurance companies are in business to make money. That means they have to take in more money than they pay out. One of the biggest ways of doing this is by delaying payment. Let me give you a couple real-life examples.

A patient came in for some fillings in November of 2017. Claim was submitted electronically the next day. Legally, insurance companies have 30 days to pay a claim so twice a month, we print a report and call on any claims that are over 30 days. On this particular claim, insurance said that they did receive it and payment was sent. I waited another two weeks but no check showed up (1^st delay). I called again and was told that I would have to wait 30 days from the date the check was issued to place a check tracer on it (2^nd delay). I called a third time to get a check tracer placed. I was told they would have an answer for me in 7-10 business days (3^rd delay). I called 2 weeks later and “no record” of me calling was noted from the previous calls; no check tracer was placed on the check (4^th delay). I won’t bore you with the blatant neglect from this insurance company, but it is now January of 2019 and payment has still not been received. HOURS of salary were paid to our employees for a claim that should’ve been handled in 30 days!

Another problem we see continually is when an insurance company gives us a breakdown of patient benefits, and it says a particular code is a covered benefit. The patient has the treatment done, and the claim is denied (1^st delay). More supportive information is sent to insurance for an appeal and they say it’s never been received (2^nd delay). We send the information again and receive a 2^nd denial on the appeal (3^rd delay). We get the patient involved who calls the insurance company and is either told, 1- we never received an appeal from your dentist, or 2-the claim has now been re-reviewed and is in processing. Months it takes to play these games with your insurance. Two years ago, one company got so bad that we had to drop our “in-network” status!

Did you know that even with a preauthorization for treatment, they can still deny a claim?!? Being in this business for the last 25 years, I have seen a drastic change in coverage and not in a good way. The reason we buy insurance is to avoid paying thousands of dollars when a serious dental problem occurs. The company protects itself by setting deductibles, exclusions, waiting periods, and annual maximums that limit your coverage so much, you still pay most of the fees for any significant problem. As if that isn’t bad enough, the company counts on 30-40% of those who pay for coverage to not use any of it! Worse than that, most of their policy holders do not use their entire benefit (that they paid for). Since your premium cost is hidden in your payroll deduction, you do not even realize you are losing even more of your money!

That is why here at Summit Dental we offer our own membership plan that helps you keep regular appointments and catch little things before they become big things. We also offer financing plans to help you afford the care you deserve. Give our office a call to discuss which plan is the right plan for you.

Holly

I have heard this question a lot in my dental career. I don’t blame people for this seemingly dumb question because how would they know. They’re not dentists!

The answer is yes. And just to clarify another point, a tooth with a root canal and a crown can still get a cavity…..or fracture…..or infection. A lot of people think that if a tooth has a root canal and a crown, then there will be no further work needed on that tooth. They think it’s already had so much work to fix it, how could it ever need more work? Some even think they don’t need to brush and floss that tooth anymore. Wrong again!

A crown (or “cap”) covers the tooth to help protect if from fracture. A crown is necessary when a tooth is so heavily restored with fillings that the remaining tooth structure is weakened. At this point, we worry the tooth will fracture and need to be extracted, so we crown it. But even after a crown is done, there is still a margin where the ceramic of the crown meets the margin of the tooth (see picture). This micro-gap can be a large cave for bacteria, and they can hide out and cause decay below the crown. So please brush and floss your crown!

A tooth that has had a root canal AND crown can fail for several reasons. Sorry to say it, but you will most likely not have this tooth the rest of your life. A dental school professor once told me that teeth have 9 lives, just like cats. To me this means that after I have worked on a tooth roughly 9 times, there is no further heroics that can be done. Think about a tooth that needs a root canal and crown-this tooth most likely had a small cavity when you were a young kid. They had to do a filling on it. Years later that filling had to be replaced, possibly even 2-3 times. After more time a dentist decided the tooth needed to be crowned. Years later that tooth gave you a toothache, so you had a root canal procedure. This poor tooth has been worked on 9 times over the course of 20-30 years. Even assuming high quality dental work (which unfortunately does not always occur-thus shortening the lifespan of that tooth even further) that tooth is about ready to give up. At this point the root canal can get re-infected, the root can fracture from too much stress, or you can get decay again around the crown. If any of these happen, I unfortunately much be the bearer of bad news-that tooth you thought was supposed to last forever because it had a root canal and a crown needs to be extracted. Sorry!

So please understand that all dentistry has a lifespan and in order to maximize it, you need to take care of all that dental work you invested in years ago!

-Dr. Spillers

Our team at Summit Dental has seen some exciting changes in the last couple of months! Here are a few highlights:

-The much-anticipated babies finally arrived! Our devoted hygienist Michelle, who was set on working right up until the due date, had her baby 4 weeks early! Little Reese came in early August and she and Michelle are doing great.  This is her first baby and she will be taking a couple of months of maternity leave to dote on her little girl.  Sorry to any patients we had to reschedule last minute due to Reese’s insistence on arriving early!

-Our dental assistant Jenn, who surprised us with announcing she was pregnant just a month after we hired her (we still love her though!), had her baby near the end of August. Due to the very understandable demands of being pregnant, Jenn had to stop working about 2 months ago. We missed her fun personality at the office everyday but were overjoyed to hear about her healthy delivery.  She is back home with the baby and everyone is doing well!

-We have some new team members! Due to the growth of our practice, which of course is due to our wonderful patient’s telling EVERYONE they know about us, we had to hire another hygienist.  When we say hired her, we really mean we brought in an old friend. Heather has worked for our practice in the past just filling in sporadic days when we needed her. Recently, she made the decision to leave her other office and come to work with us on a more permanent basis! It was great timing as she will obviously help us cover Michelle’s maternity leave.  Once Michelle returns, we plan on having both her and Heather work 3-4 days a week.

-We also had to fill in the void Jenn left when she had her baby. We hired a great new dental assistant named Christy.  She has tons of experience in the dental field and brings great energy and new ideas to our culture. We are excited to have our team expanding and we continue to try and provide an amazing group of people that love working together!

We would like to thank our incredible patients for supporting our office in these exciting changes. The outpouring of support from our patients has been fun to watch. We have been touched by the gifts and kind words of encouragement you have given to Michelle and Jenn. We are also thankful for your warm reception of our new team members!

-Dr. Spillers

Everyone knows you should floss once a day, but not everyone knows how to floss properly. Here are some step by step instructions and tips for using dental floss and a water pik.

1. Wrap the dental floss around the middle fingers of each hand and hold the dental floss tightly between the thumbs and forefingers. This gives you more control and helps you to gently insert it between the teeth.
2. Curve the dental floss against the side of the tooth in a ‘C’ shape.
3. Rub the floss gently up and down, keeping it pressed against the tooth and drawing the floss slightly under the gums. Don’t jerk or snap the floss.
4. As you move from tooth to tooth, unwind the clean floss with one finger and take up the used floss with the opposite finger. This eliminates spreading bacteria.
5. Don’t forget to floss the back side of your last tooth.

1. Fill the reservoir with warm water. Warm water is generally more comfortable especially with sensitive teeth.
2. You can add a small amount of mouthwash for flavor. Diluted mouthwash, if not prescription strength, loses its effectiveness when diluted. With some units, flavoring agents can shorten the life of the unit, so read your instructions first. If using a flavoring agent, flush the unit with plain water when finished.
3. Select your preferred tip and click into the Handle. If this is your first time using a water pick, choose the pressure setting that is most comfortable and gradually work your way up.
4. Keep your thumb on the pause button so you can avoid splashing if things get messy.
5. Lean over the sink and place tip in your mouth. To avoid splashing, clean while slightly closing your lips and letting the water run out of your mouth into the sink, or while keeping you mouth completely closed and pausing to spit out the water when needed.
6. Place the tip at a 90 degree angle between the teeth. Pause for a few seconds between teeth before sweeping along the gumline to the next area. Many people like to start on their back teeth and work their way around each arch, top and bottom.
7. Make sure you use the water pick to clean from both the cheek and the tongue side of each arch.

When you have an efficient, stream-lined, great experience at Summit Dental, it is because of the diligent efforts of our two amazing assistants, Fred and Jen! They are pros at the behind-the-scenes details you don’t even realize go into a making a dental appointment seem routine. From sterilizing equipment and cleaning rooms, to giving you post-op instructions, these two do it all. Here are some of the reasons we want to point a spotlight on our assistants during National Dental Assistants Recognition Week 2018!

-They go above and beyond to make sure you are comfortable while you are here. They explain procedures to the patients in real language, not that complicated dental language only dentists get! They provide blankets, music/TV programs, or headphones to help reduce anxiety. They also give you advice when you leave so you know what to expect after your dental work is completed.
-They love their jobs! These two would come to work on their day off just to hang out and have fun. We love their enthusiasm and passion for taking care of our patients. We love that they take to new technologies well, especially when Dr. Spillers gets excited about something that completely changes the normal routines!
-They help wherever we need them. Did you know that Fred and Jen can both design and fabricate beautiful crowns with our Cerec machine? They are improving their lab skills daily, so we don’t have to send your crowns to an expensive dental lab anymore. They also clean the office, help our hygienist Michelle, answer phones, and perform in-office whitening.
-They manage a large inventory of supplies, so we never run out of a product or material while doing your dentistry. This is a really big deal! Would you want your dental care compromised, or worse, re-scheduled at the last minute, because we ran out of a certain supply? Quality dentistry can be delivered efficiently with the right tools and products on hand. When you run out of those materials, dentistry can be difficult. All of our team members have worked in the past at unorganized offices that didn’t pay attention to these small details. Unfortunately, the dentistry suffered. This never happens at Summit Dental because of our wonderful assistants!

There are many more things we could mention about our assistants, but you get the point. We love the passion, professionalism, and integrity of Jenn and Fred. Next time you are in our office, tell them what a wonderful job they are doing. They would love to hear it!

It’s February and of course that means Valentine’s Day, but did you know February is also National Heart Health month? While you are busy taking care of your sweetheart, don’t forget to take care of your heart too!

Heart disease is the number one killer for both men and women in the United States, but it is the most preventable. There are many things we can do to improve our heart health like being more active, eating better, and stop smoking, but did you know oral heath can be linked to heart health as well?

Studies have shown that people with moderate to advanced gum disease are at far greater risk for heart disease than those with healthy gums. Swollen bleeding gums are full of bacteria that can enter your blood stream and spread throughout your body. This bacteria can contribute to inflammation of your hearts arteries. While fats and cholesterol can clog our arteries, inflammation can play a big role as well. Inflammation causes your heart arteries to thicken, and when this thickening becomes extensive, your artery blocks blood flow to a portion of your heart leading to a heart attack.

From our heart to yours, the team at Summit Dental wants to remind you to brush twice a day, floss nightly, and don’t forget to get your teeth cleaned regularly.

-Michelle Heiner RDH

We are so excited to have our new assistant Jennifer! Anyone who runs a business knows how important it is to find the right fit professionally and personally. Here at Summit Dental, we cultivate a passionate, sincere team and Jennifer fits right in. She loves dentistry and educating patients about having a healthy mouth. Always a team player, she is willing to jump in and help out wherever needed. We look forward to a great year with a fabulous team!

2017 brought 3 new babies to our Summit Dental family. Dr. Spillers and his wife welcomed baby #3 in March, a beautiful baby girl, and Ciara welcomed baby #2 in October, also a beautiful baby girl. Fred and his wife welcomed baby #3 late 2016, also a girl. LOL! GIRL DOMINATION! Patients tease us about “drinking the water” here because of the baby boom. Can’t wait to see how many more 2018 brings us.

We are very blessed and happy to serve our community and take care of our amazing patients. We strive to empower our patients by providing compassionate and conservative general dentistry, where they will feel comfortable and heard. We hope 2018 brings all the wishes and blessings you desire.

-Holly

2018 is shaping up to be a year of continuing education………. again!  For some time now, I have wanted to gain more training in implants.  Recently I was made aware of some great courses that will be held in my own backyard of Las Vegas!  The implant company Implant Direct has a series of courses that a dentist can take over 2 years.  You pay a one-time tuition fee for their “passport” and you get to attend as many courses as possible in that period.  This turned out to be an answer to one of my problems!  I really have been wanting to get some comprehensive implant training but many of the courses are held out of the state and require heavy time (and financial) commitments.  Having a national company like Implant Direct supply those courses locally will allow me to get that training next year and still have plenty of balance and family time.  After all, that is one of the reasons many of us became dentists!  Of course, I want to immerse myself in dentistry and become a great clinician, but I won’t do it at the expense of being a workaholic and missing a lot of family time!

Another thing I am excited to learn about is Fast Braces.  We already offer Invisalign therapy in our office, but I want to be able to offer a second orthodontic option for our patients.  My identical twin brother, who is a dentist in Arizona, learned about Fast Braces 1 year ago and has loved it.  You can do complex cases quickly and efficiently and with great control.  It is a more traditional braces system with brackets and wires but with some of the advantages it boasts it will be a great complement to the services we already offer.

As always, there will be opportunities for study club meetings, webinars, and association meetings.  The task of learning never ends!  We are also still learning more ways to utilize our Cerec machine every day. This is the machine that allows us to make crowns in a single visit.  There are always more things to learn about this incredibly powerful and convenient technology.  With the addition of all this learning I hope next year I can be a better clinician and better serve our wonderful patients!

-Dr. Spillers

We have been blessed with another successful year in treating the wonderful people of Las Vegas (and a few who have traveled from Utah and Reno to see us!). We wanted to reflect for a couple of minutes on what we are thankful for during this holiday season.

5) We are thankful that people eat sugar and chew ice! Just kidding.  In all seriousness we love fixing teeth and we need patients to do that!  We are thankful that when people do engage in such preposterous activities, and then get cavities or broken teeth, they think of seeing us first.  We have been blessed to have a large percentage of our patients come from existing patients.  This tells us we are doing something right and that people want to refer their sugar eating, ice chewing friends to us!

4) We are thankful for a wonderful support team of reps (even if they switch companies).  We love to utilize them and use their support whenever necessary.  They are always quick to offer advice, great products, and continuing education courses.  Our lead assistant Fred especially loves to barter and see how much free product he can get for the office.  What a character!

3) We are thankful for technology and our Cerec machine.  As I write this a crown is being fired up in the oven to cement in a patient’s mouth!  This is saving the patient a second visit just to cement a lab made crown.  In addition, she does not have to wear a temporary crown over the Thanksgiving holiday! What a huge blessing that is.  Nobody wants to chew a Thanksgiving meal with temporary crowns.  We are loving using our Cerec machine to make same day crowns, as well as other technology such as lasers to treat periodontal disease and whiten teeth.  It really makes our job more fun as well.

(by the way the photo shows a jar of all the crowns we have milled the last 7 months)

2) We are thankful for such a wonderful team of people to work with! We truly all enjoy coming to work every day and love an office free of drama.  We love to joke around with each other and do team activities together.  We even went to a dental meeting together this summer!  It is a blessing when good people come together with a purpose and make your place of employment fun. Thanks team!

1) We are thankful to have wonderful patients!  We love putting on some good pandora music and rocking out while we do some dentistry on you.  We understand that this may not where you want to be on your day off from work, or your lunch break from work, but as long you’re here let’s have some fun! Thank you being awesome, loyal patients who support us and our office.  It is our pleasure to serve you.

-Dr. Spillers

Last week I had the opportunity of attending the Dentsply-Sirona World 2017 here in Las Vegas.  As many of you know, my identical twin brother is a dentist (the one on the left of the photo) as well and we were able to “nerd out” together for 3 straight days! This was nothing new for us as we talk almost daily about dentistry to each other over the phone.

We attended the entire meeting for free because we took a “Discover 3D (CBDT)” track. This meant that we were interested in purchasing a 3D x-ray machine that enables us to see the mouth in 3 dimensions.  A traditional x-ray in a dental office only shows 2 dimensions and frequently misses critical diagnostic information.  It has always been on my radar to get this technology but the issue has been timing.  We recently purchased a Cerec machine that makes crowns in a single visit so the 3D x-ray machine may have to wait a few years.  It will be a tough wait though!  I have used this technology in the past for implant planning and it is incredible.  I cannot wait to have it someday.

In addition, we took courses about root canal therapy, implants, Cerec crowns, and patient financing.  The last one actually turned out to be the most rewarding course as I signed up our office to start offering financing through a service called Compassionate Finance. This company will allow us to offer monthly payments on our patient’s terms so they can complete ideal care NOW, rather than delaying it or spacing it out over a couple of years.  The last thing we want is a patient delaying treatment while they wait for more insurance benefits, and then the tooth requiring more treatment like a root canal because we waited too long!

Dental meetings are exciting because they allow dental professionals to remember that we don’t practice dentistry alone.  We have a lot of the same issues and concerns and it is nice to meet and talk about them so we can figure out solutions. I am excited about the future technology that is coming to dentistry and I look forward to bringing to our patient’s here in Las Vegas!

The last couple of months have been a whirlwind of new technology and procedures at our dental office!  A couple of months ago we had the opportunity to purchase a Cerec machine.  This machine enables us to make crowns in a single visit, which eliminates the need to wear a temporary crown for 2 weeks while the laboratory fabricates the crown for us.  Not only do the crowns fit better, but our patients no longer have to return for a second visit!  This has streamlined the procedure in our office and, honestly, made our dentistry a lot more fun to do.  Our team has loved learning this new process and we have seen the rewards in our satisfied patients!

With the addition of this new technology comes more opportunities for taking continuing education.  Recently our entire team attended the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD) Annual 2017 meeting in Las Vegas.  This 3 day event let our team members take courses in topics such as oral surgery, office management, occlusion, Cerec designing of crowns, and office culture. We came back energized from our courses and excited to implement some new strategies in the office!

Lastly we bought a new laser for the office.  The benefits of this to our patients are numerous!  The area we currently use lasers in the most is our hygiene department.  Michelle (our hygienist) and I are utilizing laser energy to kill gingivitis causing bacteria during your cleaning visit.  This helps the gums heal better after cleanings and look healthier at your next recall visit. In the coming weeks, I hope to use the laser in more of my procedures as well. This can include laser whitening, management of TMD pain, and better management of gum tissue while doing crowns and fillings.

Most importantly there is an excitement in the office from all the positive changes!  We have an increased desire to learn more about the technology that makes dentistry easier for us and the patients.  In the future, we have more courses planned for Invisalign, Cerec crowns, and implants.  We can’t wait to add more services and be able to serve our existing patients better!

I know it’s a little early but I was thinking about the sacrifice mothers make as I completed some crowns on a wonderful patient.  This mother lived for years not liking the look of her smile.  But as with so many other mothers I see in my office, she had put off her needs and desires while she raised her children.  Over time the previous white composite fillings she had started to stain and discolor.  In addition, she had some white decalcification areas that she wanted corrected. We talked about the options over several hygiene visits and she finally decided the time was right to complete the treatment.

Over two visits we prepared, temporized, and cemented her new crowns and veneers.  Even though she was initially a little nervous to have the work done, she was thrilled with the result! (I was too!)  It’s cases like this that can make our profession so rewarding.  The smile is often the first thing people notice when we meet someone and this mother finally had a smile she could be proud of again!

Occasionally the years of selfless sacrifice don’t always just result in cosmetic needs.  I also see mothers who have delayed replacing missing teeth or getting necessary work done on painful teeth because the needs of their children come first.  This seems to be the way of life was we sacrifice our time and effort for their needs. I know firsthand as I have two boys ages 5 and 2, and I have a newborn daughter at home as well.  They sure do take up a lot of my time and energy!

To all the mothers out there (my own wonderful mom included!) who put the needs and desires of their children before their own, we appreciate your sacrifice.  We hope you have a wonderful Mother’s Day this year and receive all the love and appreciation you deserve!

Poor oral health not only effects the look of our smile but also our self-confidence, often our success, and even our relationships, not to mention our general health as well.  Research is continuing to show a correlation between poor oral health and serious health problems such as diabetes, heart disease, and premature low birthweight babies, among others. Prevention is ideal and these five tips can make all the difference.

1. Brush twice a day for two minutes with fluoridated toothpaste. Most people know that they are supposed to brush twice a day but many of us are not doing so properly and not for a full two minutes. The majority of adults, when they do manage to brush, only do so for thirty seconds to one minute. When we spend a full two minutes brushing, fewer places are missed and less plaque and bacteria are left behind. Time yourself when brushing or use an electric toothbrush that runs on a two minute timer. To more adequately clean the teeth and gums, hold the bristles of your brush at a 45 degree angle pointed toward the gum line and use gentle short circular motions. Make sure you are not too aggressive as you do not want to cause damage to your gums.
2. Floss daily to remove plaque from places your toothbrush can’t reach. Less than 50% of adults use dental floss regularly and one in five people have NEVER flossed their teeth! If plaque is allowed to collect, especially below your gum line, it can eventually harden into tarter. Untreated it can lead to periodontal disease, tooth decay, and tooth loss.
3. Eat a healthy diet. When we eat things that are high in sugar, it feeds bacteria in our mouth and produces acid. Our saliva helps neutralize this acid, but it takes time. Our teeth can remain under an acid attack for up to 30 minutes after consuming sugars. Therefore frequent snacking or drinking of sugary things means frequent acid exposures that can lead to tooth decay. An unbalanced diet may lack certain nutrients and make your oral tissues less resistant to infection and more prone to gum disease. Crunchy fruits and vegetables like carrots and apples actually help clean and scrap plaque off your teeth. Eat a balanced diet with a variety of foods from all food groups and limit sugary, high starch, and simple carbohydrate snacks.
4. Avoid using tobacco products. You have heard this from your medical doctors time and time again, but you should hear it from your dentist too. Tobacco products not only leave a tenacious unsightly black stain on your teeth, but are an oral health risk too. Tobacco use greatly increases your risk for periodontal disease and is a major contributing factor in the development of oral cancers.
5. Get regular dental check-ups. Daily brushing and flossing, when done properly, helps remove plaque. However regular dental check-ups are needed to help remove plaque and tarter from places that are harder for a toothbrush and floss to reach. Regular dental check-ups are also one of the best ways to detect problems at an early stage when they are more easily and affordably treatable.

Implementing these five tips into your routine may prevent not only a denture in your future, but can reduce your risk for serious health conditions. There is power in prevention and we are here to help make that happen. For more information on Periodontal Disease, what it is, prevention, and treatment visit our website.

Sometimes I feel a little out of place in the big city of Las Vegas.  My vision for Summit Dental involves our practice experiencing the types of relationships you might get in a small town dental office.  This type of office, to me, seems to be the best way to find fulfillment and enjoyment in doing dentistry each day.  Las Vegas may not seem like the most obvious place to seek this type of practice, but maybe we can break the mold and create something that people in the big city aren’t expecting to find.

There are multiple ways we try to accomplish this.  First, we invest in our team and in our business so that we all find satisfaction with our work environment.  This creates a more happy and consistent team and reduces the new faces you will see in our office.  Second, we keep on top of the latest technology and practices so we can minimize the number of referrals to other offices.  Certainly we love our specialists and use them when appropriate, but if we can learn something and keep you under our roof more often, everybody wins. Lastly, we try to give everybody a great experience each and every time they visit us.  We know that most people hate to see the dentist, but we hope they still love coming to see their Summit Dental friends!

Thank you for taking the time to read our blog and if you have any family or friends who need that small town dental office feel don’t hesitate to send them our way!