Medical and dental care can be expensive – especially if you or your family is without dental insurance, and even with insurance there can be out-of-pocket expenses.  This is why many patients will elect to travel outside the country to get dental work done, believing that total expenses for treatment will be less than having treatment in Houston.  While the costs may be less initially, there are important factors to consider in addition to cost that include dental training, professional licensure, safety with radiation from dental x-rays, office sanitation, and dental instrument sanitation.  Summit Dental Center, as all dentists in the US and Houston, Texas must meet very strict federal, state and local requirements for all the above-mentioned factors.  For instance, there are very strict standards for cleanliness and a dental office as well as strict sanitization standards for dental instruments that are put in place to protect the patients from infection and blood borne diseases that can be transmitted by non-sterile conditions.  The professionals at Summit Dental Center are also trained in how to properly take dental x-rays and shield the patient from radiation exposure.  The bottom line is you don’t necessarily know what safety and professional standards apply to dentists abroad.  While some countries may match or exceed the level of safety required at your Houston main dental home, some will fall far below those standards.  Summit Dental Center strives to provide the highest quality oral health care to all its patients regardless of their budget.  We accept most dental plans, CHIP and Medicaid.  In addition, we may offer payment plans for services if payment in full is an issue.  Don’t risk your dental health, and let tourism be for vacation.

Some employers provide dental insurance for employees and their dependents, but most of us do not review of dental health plan until a claim is denied or only partially covered by the provider.  This can create unplanned dental expenses that stretch the budget. If you have dental insurance take some time to review your policy before seeking treatment beyond normally covered services such as cleanings and exams.  Some important terms to know and recognize in your dental insurance policy include:  usual, customary and reasonable; pre-existing condition; annual maximum benefit; preferred providers; and treatment exclusions.  Usual, customary and reasonable refers to what your dental plan actually covers in terms of services and treatment.  If you have a pre-existing dental condition, treatment for that dental condition may not be immediately covered by the plan.  The annual maximum benefit is the maximum amount your plan will pay in a 12-month period; usually the patient pays anything beyond the annual maximum.  Preferred providers refer to dentists and dental clinics that have a contract with the dental insurance company.  You can easily check to see that your dentist is a preferred provider before scheduling an appointment, but Summit Dental Center in Houston takes most dental health plans.  Finally, treatment exclusions refer to services, treatments or devices that are not covered by your dental health plan.  At Summit Dental Center we are here to help you and your family maintain excellent oral health.  We know that an unplanned and uninsured dental expense can put a major crimp in your family’s budget, so we offer flexible payment plans and various forms of payment. Do not be afraid to ask about such plans if you need to.

Each February the American Dental Association sponsors National Children’s Dental Care Month.  The aim is to enlist the help of parents and teachers to educate children about the importance of oral health and to help those children set good habits early in life that will serve them into their adult years.  If you are a teacher in the Houston area, consider contacting a dental health provider to come speak to your class, and if that is not possible both parents and teachers can easily talk to children about their dental health and its importance.  One fun game is to have children in your class write down what foods they can eat without teeth and what foods absolutely require teeth for chewing. This gets the children actively engaged by thinking about how they’d eat their favorite foods without any teeth.  Another fun activity is to demonstrate with an apple how tooth decay progresses in a tooth with a hold (i.e. cavity).  Simply take one fresh apple and create a 1-inch hole in the fruit.  Put the apple in a brown paper lunch sack for three days.  After three days have passed, cut the apple near the hole to show a cross-section of how the apple decayed.  The same process happens with teeth that are not well cared for.  Having children participate in this kind of hands-on learning makes them think about their oral health and most importantly remember good oral health habits.

If you think that dentists only deal with the patients’ teeth and gums, you’d be partially right, missing a lot of other important areas.  However, a dentist’s education and clinical training takes him/her well beyond that.  In addition to the patient’s mouth (gums, teeth, tongue, salivary glands), dentists are trained to treat muscles of the head, neck and jaw and nerves in the head, neck and jaw.  When your Summit Dental Center dentist examines you, she/he is also looking for other abnormalities such as swelling, ulcers and tissue discoloration, and when appropriate she/he may perform a biopsy or other diagnostic tests.  With regular dental exams, a dentist can often see early warning signs of chronic diseases such as diabetes.  When appropriate your dentist may refer you to a dental specialist.  At Summit Dental Center, we value our patients and the fact that they have honored us with the privilege of being their main dental home.  Therefore, we take our patients’ dental health seriously.

At Summit Dental Center in Houston, many of the patients we see believe that they only need to come to see us when they have tooth pain or when they feel something might be wrong in the mouth, but that could not be further from the truth.  Patients (adult and children) should see their dentist at least twice a year for routine check-ups and cleanings.  This not only keeps the mouth healthy, but also helps your dentist to practice preventive measures so that patients don’t end up with cavities or advanced gum disease.  Though you will spend a lot of time with your dental hygienist during routine appointments, your dentist does many things in his/her examination.  He/she monitors the development of the teeth in young patients, diagnoses oral diseases, creates treatment plans to prevent and treat oral diseases, interprets x-rays and other diagnostic tests.  A dentist is a medical doctor of the mouth, and he/she has gone through many years of rigorous training passing written exams and clinical exams before becoming licensed.  Dentists also maintain their licenses by going to continuing education courses so that they are aware of the latest treatments and research on various dental conditions.  At Summit Dental Center we strive to make your dental appointment as convenient, comfortable and affordable possible.  We not only take most dental insurance plans, but we also welcome Medicaid and CHIP patients.