Sherry Alexander, DDS and Associates

In the interest of fairness, I’d like to respond to the comments posted by LadyAg. I’m sorry to read your comments that elude to the fact that our office’s main priority is not the patient. As a new adult patient to our office, we do request to do a full mouth series of radiographs. In order to do a comprehensive exam we must take comprehensive radiographs. This is no different than going to the doctor for a checkup or physical. They must gather all the pertinent information to make a diagnosis (ie, blood samples and other necessary samples, take your blood pressure, your weight, etc.) It’s through all the gathered data that the physician is able to formulate a diagnosis. If any of the pertinent information is missing, an accurate diagnosis can’t be made. Dentistry is the same way. We have to gather all the pertinent information before we can make a comprehensive diagnosis. We gather a medical history and blood pressure, a dental history, full mouth probing, and also a full mouth series of radiographs. The full mouth series enables us to be able to see the roots of all the teeth in the mouth, as well as the supporting bone, and any infection or abnormalities that could be present in any of these areas. The bitewings that you are referring to are very limited because they only show the points of contact between the posterior teeth, so none of the anterior teeth are even shown with these radiographs. Therefore, by doing the bitewings alone, we are unable to comprehensively evaluate the state of each tooth in the mouth. We normally take the full series of radiographs on our new adult patients and the bitewings are taken once a year. Unfortunately, your insurance is very limited and did not cover your full series of radiographs, so our office offered to take them at your reduced insurance fee of $54 rather than our standard fee. You were adamant with the staff about only performing the radiographs that your insurance would cover. The staff tried to explain the reason for the full series of radiographs but then you stormed out of the office before the doctor even had a chance to come in to speak with you. There have been many instances where we have had new patients to request their full mouth series from their previous dentist and have them sent to us, so that we have a baseline to go from and the patients are not subjected to taking the radiographs twice. However, since you had not been to the dentist for more than 5 years, we felt it necessary to take the necessary radiographs to be able to diagnose comprehensively. We wish you all the best in finding an office where you are comfortable. We also hope that you understand the reasoning behind taking the full series of radiographs and not the bitewings. We ultimately had your best interest at heart and hope that you can see that from what was stated above. We care deeply for our patients, and we do strive to develop long lasting relationships with them.