The cooler weather today reminds me that the end of the year is approaching! Time flies…we are almost through 2012. The end of the year will be upon us before we know it; and with the end of the year comes the end of your yearly dental insurance benefits.

Did you know that each year insurance companies make millions of dollars off patients who forgo necessary and preventive dental care?  Most insurance plans allow you a certain amount of benefits each year, and if you don’t use the benefits before the end of the year, those benefits are gone!  No “rolling over” to the next year.  The bottom line, what you do not use, you lose.

We want to make sure that you take full advantage of any remaining benefits your family might have.  Many times you may be able to save money by completing your treatment before year’s end and avoid having to pay a new deductible next year.

If you have any questions about how much actual coverage remains on your insurance benefits, please call our office so that we can check on that for you.  At that time, we can schedule you at the earliest available appointment to ensure you take full advantage of all the insurance benefits you pay for.

Please call or email us to make an appointment before the end of the year.  We are scheduling November and December appointments at this time.

Please don’t wait until the last minute!  Last year in November and December our schedule was so full that we weren’t able to fit everyone in before the end of the year.  Give us a call at 778-4681!

For the relatively short time that we have been in El Paso we have been so impressed with the people and how they have treated us. We are reminded everyday as we work with all of our dental patients that there are countless good people here. We work hard to give them the best dental results possible along with the most amount of love and attention. As we do, the people of El Paso always bless us with great referrals and more friends to help. We understand that the dentist isn’t always the most pleasant place for most people, however we find that as people visit Green Family Dental here in El Paso they seem to change their negative perspectives about the dentist office. We also find that people smile more and more as they come in. Its really rewarding to be able to make such an impact on other’s lives.

El Paso apparently loves Green Family Dental!

Obviously we love to be the preferred dentist office in the El Paso area. As our patient numbers grow and grow, we have learned that the Reciprocation Cycle really does work. We give to you and your friends our very best, and you have been reciprocating with more than we ever expected. We love you El Paso and feel extremely grateful to you. If in anyway we can use our professional skills, enthusiasm, or positive attitudes to benefit you in anyway please don’t hesitate to ask. We feel indebted to you forever

Dr. Greenhalgh showed me these models of a patient’s teeth yesterday, he was really excited about the progress we are making with this patient’s braces!  This patient is a 17 year old that has been in braces for about 6 months.  The first photo is of the impressions we took a few days ago.  It looks a little funky because of the braces being on the teeth, but if you compare it to the second photo, which is the one we took before starting the braces, you can see a big change!   The lateral tooth has come forward quite a bit and also the canine on the bottom is being rotated.  You can’t really tell from the pictures (I’m not a very good photographer!) but there was a small gap between his two front teeth that is now closed.

Dr. Greenhalgh does braces on kids and adults.  We are actually starting braces on a lady tomorrow that has always wanted braces but never had the time or money when her kids were growing up.  Now that all the kids are out of the house, she decided she wanted to do something for herself and get her teeth fixed!  I’m really happy for her.

Green Family Dental offers free consultations for orthodontics, so if you are interested in getting braces, give our office a call at 915-778-4681 and we can schedule an appointment for you!

We have been loving the cloudy and rainy El Paso weather the last couple days, it’s been so nice!

Because of our support for healthy living we wanted to pass the word along about a very interesting event that will be held here in El Paso. Have you ever heard of the Tarahumara Indians and their tradition of running? If so, then come help celebrate the screening of a film and photo event held on May 16th. If not, then you will absolutely enjoy yourself on may 16th.

Here is a link to the actual page invitation. Remember to get out, be social, be healthy and be happy! We have a great city to explore and enjoy.

P.S. Whenever you have any questions relating to dentistry or oral health, please do not hesitate to contact us. Tell your friends that we are a great resource for dental advice and the best dental procedures available in El Paso, we would absolutely love your help spreading the word!

The purpose of this quick little blog post is to help anyone that might not yet be a Green Family Dental patient. When it comes to choosing a dentist in El Paso, Texas you have many choices, which is a benefit for the patients in the area.

I would like to help you get down to the facts and hopefully provide some very helpful information about how to choose a quality dentist and what benefits you will receive by allowing us to care for all of your dental needs.

Our typical dental patient here in El Paso

Let me paint a quick picture of our typical patient. Everyone of them would probably qualify themselves as a “normal person”. Yes, some of them have high incomes and others have lower incomes, but the truth is that all they want is a dentist that performs well and gives good results for a good price. People want to be happy with their teeth and our patients really are very happy with their results.

Most of them have pretty busy schedules and we do our best to accomodate them at all times. Most of them also have friends and family who also need dental services here in the El Paso area and so we know that if we perform well for them, then they will help us by bringing in friends and family to our practice. Our patients range from very young to very elderly individuals, so we feel that we really do make everyone feel special, important and make sure they receive the very best deal possible.

What to look for in a Dentist (especially in El Paso)

Here are a couple of things you want to look for when choosing a new dentist:

• Clean facility
• Updated records
• Interested and curious about your situation (A doctor must take the time to properly assess your situation)
• Experience is important (But also don’t overlook the fact that new information and recent schooling is also extremely important because information and new techniques are being developed every day)
• His Staff is happy (If there is a good atmosphere in the office, you can assume they give quality service and are proud about the work they will perform for you)

What it all boils down to is you are looking at these clues to simply find out whether or not he/she actually cares about YOU. By having every one of these aspects in place you can tell that he has taken care of all the little details to make sure that you have the absolute best experience and that he wants to earn the honor of being “Your El Paso Dentist”

What questions to ask your El Paso Dentist

• Ask about why he chose dentistry and why he continues to be a dentist.
• Ask what extra little things he and his staff do to make sure the patient feels cared for.
• Ask what he doesn’t like about dentistry (most dentists are never asked this by their patients, a good dentist will be honest with you. Honest is always the best policy.)
• Ask him for any tips and tricks that he knows in order to help save you money, time and to achieve overall better dental health.

In conclusion, all you really want to find out is if the dentist actually CARES. If he or she does then they will have all the little pieces in place for you to have a comfortable, clean, enjoyable, affordable experience in their office. Obviously here at Green Family Dental here in El Paso, we pride ourselves in everything listed above. Don’t hesitate to give us a call and ask us about how we can help you.

There is more to your oral health than just teeth!  Believe it or not, keeping your gums healthy is just as important, if not MORE important when it comes to maintaining good oral health.  Yes, it is important to keep your actual teeth cavity free, fix them if they have cracked or broken, etc.  But gum disease is a very serious dental condition that affects your overall health.  What good are shiny white healthy teeth if the your gums are full of bacteria and disease?

Gum disease, more scientifically known as periodontal disease, is basically a bacteria that gets under the gums and starts eating away at the bone around your teeth.  For more detailed information on periodontal disease, more photos, and different treatment options available, check out this Green Family Dental website page.

One of the first signs of gum disease is red, puffy, swollen gums that start to recede, or pull away from the teeth, like in the photo below.  If you think you may need treatment for periodontal disease, call our office at 915-778-4681  for a consultation!

One of the most common questions that we get in the front office is “does my insurance cover that?” And for good reason – insurance can get complicated! So I decided to write a blog (or two, or three) on the basics of dental insurance.

When you call our office to make an appointment, and if you are one of the lucky few that even HAVE dental insurance, we will get your insurance company to get what we call a “breakdown” of your benefits, basically, what your insurance covers. Every policy is different, and we spend a lot of time trying to get as much information about your policy as possible, so that when we are discussing your treatment options with you, we can give you accurate information about how much your insurance is going to cover and whatever treatment the doctor is recommending.

Here is some of the information we get about your policy:

Deductibles and Maximums:

The benefit year is when your benefits begin and end. Usually the benefit year is from January 1 to December 31 each year, but some policies do have unusual start and end dates, like September 1 to August 30th, for example.

The maximum is the amount that your insurance company will pay toward your treatment in during your benefit year. Most policies are in the $1,000 to $1,500 range. If we say that your benefit year is January to December, and you have a max of $1,000, it means that your benefits renew every January 1st, every January 1st you have a new $1,000 to use during that year. During the year your insurance company will pay a MAXIMUM of $1,000. There is NO “rollover” of dental benefits. If during 2011, your insurance only paid $500 towards any dental treatment you got, that other $500 was gone as of December 31st, 2011. It does not carry over. On January 1, 2012, your benefits renewed and you have another $1,000 to use, but that $500 that you didn’t use last year….so long!

Most plans have a yearly deductible. It is usually around $50 per person, but I have seen some as high as $100, and some with no deductible at all. Your deductible works a lot like your maximum, it is a yearly deductible. You pay it once per year. So if you plan has a deductible, you will be paying your deductible at your first appointment for the year for dental treatment. After that first visit, you have met your deductible for the rest of the year, so you will not be paying a deductible every time you come in, only on the first visit of the year.

Preventive and Diagnostic:

“Preventive and Diagnostic” procedures are just that….procedures that help the doctor make a diagnosis, and other preventive services. The most common items that fall into this category are your exams with the doctor, xrays, and basic cleanings. Other diagnostic services could be biopsies and cultures (like if the doctor notices an unusual-looking bump or spots in your mouth or on your tongue, and wants to get it sent to a lab to have it checked out). Most insurance companies will cover your exams, xrays and basic cleanings wit the doctor at 100%. However there are some limitations….

Frequencies:

Dun Dun Dun….already the insurance is getting complicated! Yes, they usually say that your cleanings and exams are covered at 100%, but there is a limit! Most preventive and diagnostic services have a frequency limitation, which means they will only cover it every so often. The most common example of this is exams, basic cleanings, and xrays.

For example, most insurance companies will pay for TWO exams per year. So say you come in January for your cleaning and checkup. The hygienist cleans your teeth and then the doctor does an exam to make sure everything is looking ok, checking for any cavities, cracked teeth, etc. You come again in July, six months later, for your second cleaning and checkup of the year. Then in October you get hit in the face with a piece of equipment at work (this really happened to one of our patients!) and you have a broken tooth, and you need to see the doctor to see what he can do to fix it.

Well guess what?! Your insurance company has already paid for two exams that year, so they might not pay for this third exam. The other thing they are sticklers on is the xrays. The bitewing xrays are only covered twice per year (usually), and the panoramic xray (the large on that shows your entire mouth) is usually covered only once every 3 years.

Basic Services:

Basic services pretty much means fillings. Most insurance companies cover 80% on fillings. HOWEVER, one thing that we see a lot of is that insurance companies are not paying for composite fillings, which are the tooth colored fillings, and will only pay for amalgam, which are the silver fillings.. Sometimes they just don’t pay for white fillings at all, but a majority of the time they “downgrade” the white filling to a silver filling.

So you come in, you have a cavity, you get a white filling, which has a fee of $100. If they cover at 80%, they should pay $80 and you would pay $20, right? WRONG! We bill your insurance company for the white filling, $100. They say, well, we don’t cover white fillings, but we will pay on that filling, like you got a silver filling. The fee for a silver filling is $75. So instead of paying $80, they are going to pay 80% of the silver filling fee, $60. Now YOU, the patient, has to pay the difference between what your insurance company is paying on the silver fillings ($60), and the fee on the white filling (the original $100), which means you pay $40 instead of $20. The insurance companies do this in order to avoid having to pay for your treatment [rant: and to give me a headache, I swear! If your policy does this, you should call and complain or write them a letter and complain about it! Why should they not have to actually cover the treatment you received? Why should they be able to pay less and leave you with the balance? If they are going to say they cover at 80% for fillings, and the doctor is recommending a white fillings, why should they be able to say "well we think this alternative treatment is better because it costs us less so we are only going to pay AS IF you got this lesser treatment"?!?! end of rant ]

Major Services:

Major services include crowns, bridges, dentures, partial dentures, and sometimes dental implants. Most insurance companies cover these services at 50%, which means that they pay half and you pay half.

Endodontics and Periodontics:

Endodontics services are anything related to the nerve, which most of the time means root canal!
Periodontics services are procedures to treat periodontal disease (aka gum disease).

Most insurance policies cover both of these categories at 80%, but I have seen some at 60% and even some at only 50%.

Orthodontics:

There are a lot of policies that don’t cover braces at all. But if they do, most have a separate maximum, in addition to your regular maximum I talked about above. The max is usually $1000. There is also usually an age limit, usually around age 23. This means they will only pay for braces on people under that age limit. Unlike your regular yearly maximum that I talked about above, the orthodontic maximum is a LIFETIME max. It doesn’t renew every year. It’s a one-time thing. For instance, your son is 13, he needs braces. The total fee on the braces is $3,000. Your insurance will pay $1,000 (the orthodontic maximum). The patient is responsible for the other $2,000. Now that they have paid the $1,000 max, they will never pay for braces on that son again, because its a lifetime maximum, not a yearly one.

Wow this turned out to be a novel! So these are the basics. I think I will go into more detail on a few things in later posts. But if you have any specific questions about your insurance policy, please feel free to call our office at 915-778-4681 and we can help you understand your dental policy. Thanks for reading!

Here are some of the nice things our patients had to say.  You can view the site HERE.

“Dr Green as well as his staff explain everything so well to me, from the problem, solution, options and costs. Their demenor helped me to relax and feel that they cared to give me the BEST treatment. This was by FAR the BEST experience I have ever had in a dental office.”

“My family has visited this clinic prior to it switching to Green Family Dental for over a decade, even before the clinic moved from S cental to the E side. It is still worth the trip for us. Very recommendable! Happy New Year 2012!”

“Very positive experience with Dr. Greenbaugh and all of his staff. Everyone is nice and very professional.”

We also have some good reviews on Google, you can view them HERE.