What happens if something goes wrong?

Why many practices don't talk about this

In most of medicine, the doctor explaining the risks isn't the one who needs you to say yes. In dentistry, it usually is. That makes it tempting to soften the picture, and it's why dental patients are often told less about what can go wrong.

We see enough patients that we can afford to be straight with you, even if it means you choose someone else.

Why we tell you up front

If nobody tells you an implant can fail, why would you take the soft diet seriously, or the follow-up visits? Every instruction makes sense once you know what it's protecting.

Early in his career, one of us was sent in to tell a patient that every implant had failed. Nobody had ever told that patient it was possible. Their anger was completely fair, because they'd been given no reason to expect it.

What really goes wrong

We won't publish a list of surgical complications with numbers attached. That conversation belongs at your consultation, about your case, with your consent paperwork in front of you.

The frightening things you read about online are rare in competent hands. They're a bit like plane crashes. They're real, and they almost never happen to anybody.

What does come up is more ordinary. Recovery was more uncomfortable than someone expected, or someone isn't happy with how their teeth look. Those are the two we handle most, and both can be fixed.

No blame

When something goes wrong, we don't spend the appointment working out whose fault it was. The fix is the same either way, and blame only slows it down.

If you broke something on food you shouldn't have been eating, tell us. It helps us know what we're looking at, and it changes nothing about how we take care of you. Nobody here is keeping score.

When the work was done somewhere else

We see cases from other practices often, and sometimes we find problems.

We'll tell you what we see and what it would take to fix it. We won't spend your appointment criticizing whoever treated you, because we don't know what that day was like. A root can break during removal in the best hands. Bleeding, numbing that didn't take, or a frightened patient can all make the work harder. Looking at an X-ray years later shows none of that.

So you'll hear what the situation is, what we'd do, and what it involves.

What we ask of you

Two things.

Follow the soft diet. It's where patients most often add to their own problems, usually because they heal fast or were told they recover well. Implants take the time they take, however quickly you've healed from other things.

Call us early. Nearly everything is easy to fix when it's caught quickly, and much harder after months.

After surgery you go home for three months at the most delicate stage, and we rely on you. That's why we spend so much of your consultation on instructions.

Things nobody controls

Sometimes life gets in the way partway through treatment, like a serious diagnosis, a new medication that affects healing, or a big change at home. Nobody caused those, and we still have to plan around them. Tell us as soon as you know, and we'll work it out together.

What to ask any practice

Every practice has complications, so ask what happens when there is one. Who sees you, how fast, what it costs and whether it's covered.

A practice with a plan will answer right away.