Frequently Asked Questions
You Asked, We’ve Answered
Do You Take My Insurance?
For the majority of insurance plans, yes!
You can still be a patient at our office, and we DO still accept your insurance. In fact, all of our patients (over two thousand) choose us as an out-of-network provider for their insurance.
Some plans choose your dentist for you, but we can look into that!
Our team still handles the entire insurance process, from paperwork to claim submission. We offer insurance benefit verification and can submit pre-determinations when requested.
Why Are You Out of Network?
We are committed to providing high-quality dental care and an exceptional patient experience. We want to continue investing in continuing education for the entire team and upgrading our technology annually to maintain the highest quality standard of care.
We can no longer allow insurance companies to lower our reimbursement rates. We are refusing to cut corners, shorten appointments, or use cheaper labs and supplies.
We are committed to doing what is best for your oral health, not to a company’s standard for the “average” person. Our team customizes every procedure and treatment plan specifically for you!
Will I Pay More to Come to Your Office?
This is a great question! While our fees are higher to uphold our standard of care, LESS care is usually needed in our office overall.
We take the time to diagnose correctly, remove the least amount of tooth structure possible, and prevent future procedures on teeth. Overtreatment leads to higher failure rates and more procedures in the future at other offices. If the root cause of issues is not found, this leads to treatment year after year at other offices.
Many patients have tried other in-network offices and returned to our office because they end up spending less money overall with us. It matters whether you trust the work will hold up over time!
As for preventive procedures, the coverage amount depends on the agreement between your employer and your insurance company. Many of our patients have insurance plans that cover our ENTIRE preventive care fee. Some pay a lower percentage.
We can help you figure out what this portion might be by submitting a pre-determination.
What Makes Your Office Holistic? | What Is Wellness Dentistry?
When something is holistic, it is characterized by the belief that its parts are interconnected and form a whole. For holistic dentistry, it means that we don’t just look at a tooth as an individual entity. We see it as connected to your entire mouth and your body as a whole.
We often say the mouth is the gateway to the body, so what we consume, what we breathe, and the bacteria in our mouth can enter the rest of the body and affect our overall health. In reverse, certain health conditions, medications, and habits can have major effects on our mouth and teeth.
We look at everything from your health history, daily habits, diet, stress levels, sleep, and breathing to determine what caused a tooth to fail and how we can properly restore it and prevent other teeth from facing the same issues. We also place a strong emphasis on using biocompatible, non-toxic materials and treatments that do not have negative effects on the rest of your body when restoring your teeth.
While we do offer fluoride treatments for patients who request them, we also offer alternative products like Povi-One (10% iodone monthly home treatments) that kill P. Gingivalis bacteria and prevent cavities with the same effectiveness as fluoride. We always take our patients’ preferences into account in all treatment decisions, so we can treat their oral health issues while respecting what they want and don’t want in their bodies.
We also use porcelain and composite materials, avoiding metal and mercury, to be more biocompatible. We are always as minimally invasive as possible. We put a high emphasis on prevention to stop dental problems before they start. In recent years, we have focused heavily on sleep health because sleep-disordered breathing has significant and long-lasting effects on oral and overall health. We offer myofunctional therapy to restore proper orofacial muscular function, oral sleep appliances for those who cannot or do not want to use CPAP therapy, and sleep hygiene techniques to prevent future issues.
What is Biomimetic Dentistry?
Biomimetic dentistry essentially means restoring a tooth to mimic its natural biology. It is a much more conservative approach than traditional dentistry because it preserves as much of the natural tooth structure as possible, removing only decay or cracks. Dr. McCauley uses the best bonding techniques, allowing her to adhere to the tooth without removing much healthy tooth structure to provide retention.
This means that instead of traditional crowns that are prepped all the way to the gumline, we do a lot of onlays (partial crowns that only cover affected cusps) or what we like to affectionately call “mattress toppers” because they only cover the top of the cusps and leave the rest of your healthy tooth down to the gumline. The gumline area of the tooth tends to flex more during function, so preserving this part of your tooth is essential to preventing future leaking crowns and fillings.
Our goal with biomimetic dentistry is to slow or stop the cycle of crown, root canal, extraction, and implant that many people face in traditional dentistry.
We want to save you from needing any future work on your tooth! The biomimetic techniques we utilize rely on the unhurried, 1:1 focus on patient care we provide at our office and on the deep engineering and biochemistry understanding that Dr. McCauley gained in her post-degree master’s program.
We also have incredibly low post-op sensitivity rates because we preserve so much of your natural tooth, and the bonding materials and techniques we use protect it from sensitivity.
Do You See Patients with Anxiety?
YES!
We see many patients with anxiety or poor prior dental experiences. So far, we have helped every single one of them become more comfortable and trusting, and even happier at our dental office.
We are not an office that will give you a hard time or lecture you in any way. If you haven’t been to the dentist in a while, we are happy you took the big step and called us! Everyone in our office is warm and welcoming, and we work with you to tailor your treatment plan to your specific comfort level.
We offer many comforts that help with distraction and joy, including paraffin wax hand treatments, under-eye patches, warm blankets, and memory foam pillows.
We offer Netflix programming so you can focus on any show you’d like while you’re in the chair. We have light sedation with nitrous oxide, and we also have an external anesthesia provider who can come in if you’d like a moderate sedation technique during a larger procedure. Our favorite thing is seeing patients who always needed nitrous at other offices find out they really don’t need it at all with us!