Taking new patients · evenings and Saturdays
A family practice on Priory Row in Bellwood, built around the appointment you have been putting off. Every price is published. Nobody will lecture you. And a hand in the air stops everything, at any point, for as long as you need it stopped.
The practice, and the numbers we keep an eye on.
What we do, and what it costs
There is no version of this where you find out the number at the desk on the way out. This is the same sheet that is pinned up in reception, it is the same for everybody, and anything not on it gets quoted in writing before it is booked.
The appointments that stop you needing the other two columns.
Priced before we start, and re-quoted if we find something else.
Optional, always. Nobody here will bring it up unless you do.
Insurance and the practice plan. We are in network with most major PPO plans and we check your cover before you sit in the chair rather than after, so the number you are told is the number you pay. With no insurance, the practice plan is $32 a month — both check-ups, both hygiene visits, all X-rays, and 20% off everything in the middle column.
Nervous patients
About one in five of the people who register with us say they have not seen a dentist in five years or more. It is the most ordinary thing we hear in a week. Here is exactly what we do about it — not a promise to be gentle, which everybody makes, but the arrangements themselves.
Tick the box on the registration form or tell reception at the door. It goes on your notes in bold, everybody reads it before you come in, and you never have to explain yourself again.
Not a pause — a stop. Instruments down, chair up, and we wait as long as it takes with no sighing and no clock-watching. It is not an interruption to the appointment; it is part of it.
Topical gel first, and we wait the full three minutes for it rather than a polite thirty seconds. Then warmed anaesthetic, delivered slowly. Most of what people remember as the painful part is the speed of the injection, not the needle.
Some people want a running commentary on every step. Some want headphones, a podcast and no warning at all. Both are completely normal — say which one you are and that is what you get.
You can book an appointment that is only a conversation: no chair, no instruments, no examination, nothing in your mouth. It is free, it takes twenty minutes, and a surprising number of people start there.
Whatever the last ten years looked like, we start from today. Nobody here is going to make a face at you, and nobody is going to ask why you left it. We already know why.
Your first visit
The question underneath the dread is almost always "what is actually going to happen to me". This is all of it, in order. If any part is a problem, say so when you book and we will take it out.
The medical form went out by text yesterday, so there is no clipboard. Reception checks you in, offers you water, and tells you honestly if we are running behind.
Before anything goes near your mouth, and with the chair upright. What is bothering you, what happened the last time, and what you would like to be able to do that you cannot do now.
Teeth, gums, bite, and a soft-tissue check that takes ninety seconds. We do the soft-tissue check at every visit, on everybody, and we will tell you what we are looking for.
On the screen at your eye level, turned towards you. You look at the same picture we are looking at, and we point at the part we mean rather than describing it.
Priced item by item, in the order we would do it, with a line for what happens if you do nothing — because sometimes nothing is a reasonable answer. You take it home. Nothing is booked today unless you want it booked today.
You will not be sold anything in the chair. Anything cosmetic is discussed at a separate, free appointment, with your clothes on and your feet on the floor, because nobody makes a good decision about $3,400 of aligners while they are lying down with a bib on.
And there is no upgrade path here. There is one standard of work at this practice and it is the one we would do on our own families — the price list is short because the choices are.
Book a first visit
You will be looking at the same photograph we are.
Every surgery has an intraoral camera and the screen faces the chair, not the wall. We do not propose treatment we cannot show you a picture of, and if you want that picture emailed to you — to think about it, or to take to somebody else for a second opinion — just ask. It is a photograph of your tooth. It was always yours.
The practice
Two dentists and a hygienist, and that is the whole clinical team. Whoever you meet at the first appointment is who you see at the next one, and they will remember what you told them, because they wrote it down while you were saying it.
Principal dentist · 19 years
Took the practice over from her father in 2011 and kept the Saturday clinic he started. Most interested in the patients other practices have written off, which is how the nervous-patient appointments began.
Associate dentist · 11 years
Does the implants, the root canals and the long appointments other practices would rather refer out. Will talk you through every single step or none of them at all, depending on what you asked for at the door.
Lead hygienist · 15 years
Has never once told anybody off about flossing and is not going to start. Runs the direct-access hygiene appointments, which you can book without seeing a dentist first if that is all you want.
Reviews
Nine years. That is how long it had been, and I had a whole speech ready about why. Nobody asked for it. We did the talking appointment first, a check-up three weeks later, and I have been back twice since without dreading it.
Another practice told me I needed two crowns. Dr Marlowe put the photographs on the screen, showed me why one of them did not, and charged me for a filling instead. That is the entire reason I moved the whole family over.
Broken tooth on a Saturday morning and I had resigned myself to a weekend on painkillers. Seen at eleven, sorted by half past twelve, and the price was the price that is on this website. No weekend surcharge, no speech.
Questions
Book
The form takes about a minute and reception comes back the same day with times. If you are in pain right now, ring instead — that is always faster, and two appointments are held every day for exactly that.
Six fields, no obligation, and times back the same day.
In pain right now? Ring (313) 555-0119 instead and somebody will pick up.