Dental Treatment Planning 101 - Composing Your Treatment Plan

In our previous post,we talked about things that are important to remember during a new patient's comprehensive exam. As we mentioned, when your patient has many restorative needs, it is often best to bring them back for a formal consultation to discuss their treatment options in detail. 

If you are a seasoned dental assistant, you will need to work with your doctor to compose several treatment options.  If you are fairly new to your practice or if you're new to the dental assisting field,  these suggestions should be a goal to work towards with your doctor after gaining more experience and knowledge.  

Listed below are simple steps that we take in our treatment planning process:

* Your doctor will diagnose and recommend any treatment for your patient. He or she will then compose a rough treatment plan for the assistant.

Example of intra-oral photo with areas of concern highlighted 

*The assistant will then compose a formal treatment plan folder with an estimate of costs, print-outs with treatment procedure information,  photos of the teeth with areas of concern highlighted and financial arrangement options. 

*We also find it best to give our patient's several treatment options. (For example, some of your patients may only choose to address the immediate concern of a fractured tooth, while others may want more comprehensive care to also replace amalgam fillings with open margins.)

* You will also want to clearly list your patient's "problems" (the diagnosed treatment)followed by "goals" or "solutions" (how problems will be treated/restored).

*Keep in mind you may also need to include referrals slips with current x-rays if the patient is going to be referred to a specialist. 

Example of a treatment plan with folder to give to your patient

Including all this information in a nice folder is beneficial for the patient. When they leave the office they have something visual to show their spouse/significant other and is a reminder that they need to take action. Check out our next post-"Formal Consult" to see how you will present the proposed treatment to your patient.