To our dedicated and loving patients of the Grady Dental Care Family,
This year has been an unprecedented time, but with the grief and turmoil of the year, Grady Dental Care has taken this time to better ourselves and increase the Standard of Care for our patients. Standard of Care is a standard of ethics or treatment to which each individual provider holds themselves to, in order to treat patients as ethically as possible, and also holds are providers to be clinically responsible to our patients in the work we diagnose or perform.
As you may know, Dr. Grady and his associates are conservative dentists, only diagnosing and completing treatment that is necessary and attempting least invasive methods first in order to make sure our patients are treated accurately. Our wonderful hygienists are also trained in this same method in order to cater to our patients needs on a case by case basis. Since our team is very conservative in our approach, we believe we must add an extra layer of security for our patients. Our doctors have been adamant that if a patient has not had bitewing x-rays in the last 12 months, or a full mouth series of x-rays/ panoramic x-rays within 5 years, we will not be able to perform any kind of treatment on patients. This is done to protect the patient, because if our providers treat patients blindly, we could risk harm to you. The other risk is that 85% of dental treatment diagnosis is done through x-rays, not through oral examination, and without this kind of diagnostic tool, patients risk getting diseases, decay or other undiagnosed problems that could be detrimental to your oral health.
Our doctors cannot do their job of performing a thorough examination without x-rays. Remember, dental x-rays are one of the lowest radiation dose studies performed. A routine exam which includes 4 bitewings is about 0.005 mSv, which is less than one day of natural background radiation. It is also about the same amount of radiation exposure from a short airplane flight (~1-2 hrs). An exception to this rule is if a patient is pregnant, and does not have permission to receive x-rays from their OBGYN provider.
The rule of thumb for diagnosing from x-rays, is that if its small on the x-ray, it is most likely twice as big, because x-rays are two dimensional images of a three-dimensional tooth. X-rays are our most important and invaluable tool for making sure we accurately diagnose our patients, and Grady Dental Care wants to continue being conversative in our treatment of patients and this shall aid us in doing that.
In most cases, your dental insurance pays for these x-rays within these frequencies because they too understand that x-rays are a necessary diagnosing tool for our patients. Also, most insurances won’t pay your claims if we don’t have proper x-ray documentation of a dental problem, which could lead to higher out of pocket costs to you.
We thank you for consideration and allowing us to increase the Standard of Care for our patients. We value every patient who choses us as their dental provider. We know that there are other dental office options, but we hope that you continue to place your trust in us, and know that we want the very best dental care for your family and appreciate serving the Forsyth/ North Fulton communities for the past 20 years. We look forward to seeing at your next scheduled visit!
Sincerely,
Dr. Grady and Associates &
The Grady Dental Care Team