What to look for / ask during orthodontist consult?

[jgenie]

DS1 needs braces. I’ve scheduled consults with three orthodontists in our area. What am I looking for during our consults? What should I be asking? We had our first consult yesterday. They were half an hour late seeing us. Orthodontist looked in his mouth told me what they recommended and quoted a price. It seemed as if they expected me to sign him up on the spot. Par for the course or odd?

[KpbS]

Our local practices are more than happy to give a free consult and let you decide where you’d like to go.

If you are certain he needs braces I would ask:

1) what aspects will you be correcting? Bite, alignment, etc.
2) how long do you estimate he will be in braces?
3) will he need an appliance or wear rubber bands?
4) to ask the front desk: what is your cancellation policy? If I need to cancel an appt for this week, how soon can I be rescheduled? We had a real problem with this when DC was in braces. If I needed to cancel the soonest I could reschedule would basically be 3-4 weeks. This was just for a simple appointment and it prolonged his treatment time.
5) cost?
6) payment plans?
7) broken bracket/wire policy? Some places will let you have a couple of these for free before they charge you.
8) do they have before school appointments?

[jawilli4]

I definitely agree with KpbS's question 4 about rescheduling time! Her other questions were great, too.

Something else to think about is if your dentist is willing to recommend one. I was really worried during our last move that I was losing my network and told my dentist in passing. She said the best person to ask was my new dentist as they notice differences in orthodontists.

Sure enough, I asked my new dentist who gave me a recommendation for a great orthodontist. He went on to say that he doesn't prefer the work of the most popular orthodontist in our area and wishes more people would ask his opinion. Go figure!

Also, I seem to recall that our orthodontist took DS back for X-rays and maybe some other work before giving me a pricing and option discussion. I would find it odd if they only looked in DS's mouth and then gave a price based only on a peek. I also wasn't pressured into making a decision. An office worker wrote everything down and handed me a folder with her notes, pricing information, and FAQ for the options. I came back another day to sign paperwork after discussing with DH and DS, which felt like a normal procedure.

[dogmom]

I would only add three things:
1) What is your overall philosophy about braces? Mine was: We don’t want kids in braces longer than absolutely necessary. If the only one’s we that are going to tell if I get that last 10% of “correction” in are other dental professionals it’s not worth a kids spending 6-12 months more in braces. The most important thing is the bite, then general cosmetics. Braces are bad for the teeth because it’s almost impossible to clean them enough, especially for kids. I like that philosophy.
2) How easy is it to reschedule if you do cancel? Cancelling is only half of it. Mine had a great system, plenty of slots. I could cancel an hour before and get a new appointment within a week with my crazy schedule. It kept things on track.
3) How does the orthodontist keep up on orthopedic advances?

The other thing to know, that you won’t find from talking to them, is wait times. I never waited more than 5 minutes for an appointment. I wound up paying like 5-10% more than other places for my orthodontist, but they were writhing average range. I could have gotten cheaper, but a I would not have gotten such smooth running place. When you are going every 4-6 weeks that matters so much.

I also second asking the dentist office, but I also asked the front desk people and dental hygienists. The dentist tend to recommend people they know professional and like their work, which is great. The front desk people & hygienist tend to know more about the overall running of the offices and had kids go themselves. That’s where a I got my recommendation.

[ciw]

DS1 needs braces. I’ve scheduled consults with three orthodontists in our area. What am I looking for during our consults? What should I be asking? We had our first consult yesterday. They were half an hour late seeing us. Orthodontist looked in his mouth told me what they recommended and quoted a price. It seemed as if they expected me to sign him up on the spot. Par for the course or odd?

I would find it really odd if they recommended a treatment plan and pricing without first looking at x-rays. We visited four orthos before picking one, and all required full sets of x-rays. Two allowed me to bring copies of the most recent x-rays from the dentist; two required their own sets. We did have long waits at several of the practices, and one, which we did not select, did a hard core press for us to sign up on the spot.

You've received good advice on questions to ask already. A few more: How are weekend and holiday emergencies handled? How many phases, what specifically will be included in each phase (for ex., some include retainers after first phase treatment ends and before second phase starts, some charge for retainers as a phase of their own), what will they do if their treatment plan doesn't go as they expect (one ortho we saw suggested that he would pull teeth!! Um, NO!),ask to see before/after examples of patients with similar treatment plans, do they offer discounts for paying the full price of a phase up front. Once you have visited a few orthodontists, you will likely have different recs for treatment plans. In this case, ask the orthodontists why they are suggesting a particular plan over another. I also made a point of circling back to the first orthodontist and asking about his plan in comparison to a plan suggested by an ortho we consulted with later. I asked a ton of questions and was probably super annoying, but it was worth it. DS needed significant orthodontic work in multiple phases completed over four years and counting, and we ended up with a great ortho....and fingers crossed, the last braces portion will be finished this fall!

[niccig]

How close to your house? We had 2 similar consults. One was much closer to home, and the hygienist at our dentist went to him for her braces. I’m glad we went there as there were so many appointments


Sent from my iPhone using Baby Bargains

[wendibird22]

All other things being equal I'd chose proximity to home/school as you'll be going there A LOT and often for quick visits (like tightening) and you'll want to be able to race there around school, sports practice, etc. And I'd echo flexibility in rescheduling. I am finding I book an appointment that is 6 weeks out for a day/time that works only to have something with school or sports or my work come up and need to reschedule. Our practice has been really accommodating.

[Kindra178]

Talking to friends in the neighborhood/town gave us a fair amount of insight. Next, both my dentist and my kids' dentist wholeheartedly recommended the same practice, praising their work and perhaps more importantly, praising how their work aged in patients in their 20s/30s. There were other places around that are definitely cheaper (not a ton, maybe 500-700). One thing I loved about our practice: I didn't even know ds1 had Damon braces, which were oft recommended here. I asked the ortho about it and he said it was appropriate in certain kids but not all. He also indicated that the regular brackets they use cost more than the Damon braces, so he didn't understand why orthos were charging differently.

I will add, I have tons of friends whose kids constantly broke brackets. My kids, 2 so far, haven't broken any. They aren't careful and break the rules. I always wondered if that was because their brackets are better.

Wait times are super important. We have almost never waited more than 2-3 minutes, although Covid has kind of changed that a bit.

Don't go with the cheapest estimate. I know that sounds crazy but you really want to goto someone who uses the good stuff.

Braces/orthodontia can really screw up a mouth. We knew we are dealing with some serious ortho issues. We trusted the practice to make good choices.

Finally, how a practice handles emergencies is huge. Around here, no one is all that great. But, we had a tech who met us at the office on a Saturday night in a snowstorm once.

[elbenn]

Are Invisalign considered braces for purposes of this thread? It seems that quite a few kids around here get Invisalign if they don't have significant orthodontia issues. But not everyone is a candidate for them. I would ask about continued maintenance after the braces are off. I know so many people that had to go back and get braces again as adults because their alignment changed back after it had been fixed by the braces.

[bisous]

[QUOTE=ciw;4400115]I would find it really odd if they recommended a treatment plan and pricing without first looking at x-rays. We visited four orthos before picking one, and all required full sets of x-rays. Two allowed me to bring copies of the most recent x-rays from the dentist; two required their own sets. We did have long waits at several of the practices, and one, which we did not select, did a hard core press for us to sign up on the spot.

Just wanted to chime in to say that our ortho doesn't do x-rays prior to treatment plans. He does extensive examination and maybe it is just our particular kids? So far all of our kids have been checked out. He sees them first at age 6 to determine if they need early treatment (an expander for example) and so far none of mine have needed this. Then he sees them again once most of their teeth have come in. Neither of my kids so far has needed more than just over a year for treatment so perhaps their cases were mild?