Advantages of a Multi-specialty Dental Practice

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

Most general dentistry practices refer patients ‘out’ to another office when there is a specialty consultation or treatment necessary.  A multi-specialty office has the specialists ‘in-house’ and patients are not sent to a strange office in order to complete whatever specialty service that is necessary.

There is a big advantage to having the specialists ‘under one roof.’  The obvious advantage is that the patient doesn’t have to go somewhere else and engage in a new office relationship.  The specialist’s office may be located in another neighborhood or across town and requires signing up all over again as a new patient.  The multi-specialty practice makes it convenient for people to get consultations with a specialist and receive treatment.  There is no need to find another office, just make an appointment at the same place to see the specialist.

More important than the convenience factor is the collaboration of the members of the specialty team with the general dentist.  The specialists are in the same location as the general dentist and the communication are ‘in person’ as opposed to ‘on the phone’ or ‘by email, etc.’ This permits a higher level of inter-disciplinary treatment planning to occur when the patient, general dentist, and specialist are all in the same room together.  It is a superior approach to treatment coordination having all the parties discussing the case together with the patient present.

Another consideration is that when a patient is referred to a specialist outside of the practice, there is a loss of consideration of the whole treatment planning sequence and the specialist looks at the case solely from the point of view of their specialty.  In a multi-specialty practice, there is integrated treatment planning and sequencing that is done to properly consider the success of the whole case.  A multi-specialty practice can act in the best interest of the patient because there is no conflict-of-interest with outside entities.

Our advice to people that have received consultations from independent specialists, such as solo orthodontists, periodontists, oral surgeons, implant doctors, or endodontists, is to seek a second opinion from a high-quality multi-specialty practice. With this approach, you can make sure that before engaging in expensive treatment you have an experienced and qualified team of experts advocating for your best interests.