Hello and Welcome
to our Dental Practice.

We look forward to a long and lasting friendship with you. We would like to tell you a little about our office and beliefs.

We understand that choosing a new dentist and a dental team can be a challenge, leaving you with some uncertain feelings. We are writing this to inform you of the different services we offer to our patients and why. Some time ago we wrote a mission statement briefly stated it is this….

We believe that people have the right to become as healthy as they choose to be. Our desire is to work specifically with those people who wish to achieve a higher sense of self-esteem and their ability to sustain health. We achieve this by providing dental health care of the highest quality that each patient can accept that is consistent with his or her dental needs and individual value for health.

In short, our goal is to help you become as healthy as you choose to be. This is a major departure from what you are used to. Instead of telling you how healthy you should be, we try to help you understand your choices about dental health and let you make an informed choice regarding health and treatment needs.

Your first decision in this regard is how you would like to begin your relationship with us. There are four ways on which people choose to be treated in our practice.

• URGENT CARE/EMERGENCY
• REMEDIAL CARE/PATCHWORK
• MAINTENANCE CARE/BIOLOGIC
• OPTIMUM CARE/IDEAL

Please feel free to ask us any questions that come to mind, we want you to share your thoughts and ideas with an open and comfortable manner. You deserve to have the standard of dental care that is consistent with your value for health. When communication is open and concern for each other’s welfare is high, successful results are more likely to occur.

Yours in the interest of better Dental Health,

Francisco D. Fores, D.M.D.

F.I.C.O.I., A.F.A.A.I.D.

Care Types

URGENT CARE/EMERGENCY

People in crisis or with an emergency or accident need immediate help. We see emergencies same day, whenever possible. While this is not the primary focus of our practice, we are happy to see emergencies, but do not maintain patients in a long-term emergency or crisis-only status.

REMEDIAL CARE/PATCHWORK

Patients who choose this level of care desire treatment only when something breaks or becomes uncomfortable. Generally, patients at this level prefer short term, cursory type examinations, screening for more obvious advanced problems. They usually want to correct immediate problems with as little effort and cost as possible. Folks at this level are not yet ready for either thorough or preventive treatment. They live by the adage, let’s do as little today as possible and let tomorrow take care of itself.

MAINTENANCE CARE/BIOLOGIC

People choose this level of care who want to take an active part in the prevention of present and future disease problems, but choose repair solutions that are more short range in duration, usually a 2-5 year reparative or corrective treatment, knowing full well that the dental treatment performed today will have to be repeated again in the near future. This level of patient participation in dedicated preventative efforts to avoid problems in the future but takes care of today’s needs in a less than optimum manner.

Care Types

OPTIMUM CARE/IDEAL

Patients at this level are similar to people described in maintenance care. They choose to have a comprehensive examination and Master Planning and formulate a long term treatment plan for health and repair to achieve a future based on choice, not chance. Unlike the maintenance care patient, these patients are ready to start treatment. These patients are very concerned about treating the causes of dental disease and not simply the effects but want all treatment provided to be completed in the most lasting fashion possible.

CANCELLATION POLICY/ POSTPONEMENT

We want to make sure all of our patients receive optimal care during their scheduled visit. Should the need arise to cancel or change your appointment, we ask that you give us a 48 hour notice, to make it possible for us to schedule someone else to come in for treatment. Thus, last minute cancellations are subject to a broken appointment fee.

We hope this clarification makes sense to you. It is not uncommon for people to begin at one level and progress to a higher level over time. Insurance plans, capitation plans, government and HMO plans focus on Urgent care (crisis care) and remedial care both of which, in our judgement, are not preventive in nature, they treat the symptoms, but rarely is the effort of the insurance system or the people involved in the system toward preventing disease from occurring or, if it has occurred, to treat the problem in a long term manner.