 Hello everybody, Andrea Mayesky here with dental tutoring. So I had another question from a YouTube watcher, which is awesome I love those asking how to really What's the words I'm looking for how to Schedule appointments for a new patient depending on how much plaque they have how much charter Do you do all of the quads in one appointment? Do you do half the mouth? Do you do a little bit, you know everywhere and then have them back the next time? So this can be I think the trickiest thing for a new hygienist, especially I know for me It took me a good couple months to feel comfortable with knowing when to book the patient back So I was always a little bit worried to have a new patient in my chair because then it's it's my Responsibility to tell the patient and to decide how often they should be coming in for a cleaning, right? And as a new hygienist you're you're also probably thinking well if I can't you know clean the entire mouth Is that a bad thing are people looking at me wondering why I couldn't clean? The person's mouth, you know like why couldn't I do all of it where she might have been able to or whatever, right? But try not to think like that But a good rule of thumb to kind of give you guys a good starting off point is and this is what I use and Sometimes there are exceptions, but this is a good rule of thumb So what I use and what I even tell patients is that if it's been over if it's been two years or more That you've had your teeth cleaned. I might not be able to finish your entire cleaning two years I can probably do half the mouth today half the mouth next time So what I would do is I I would pick quads one and four so the right-hand side so depending on where You live depending on where you're watching this your tooth numbers are different But so I I would do the right-hand side first and then the next time I would do the left-hand side and Then after that so it takes three appointments And then after that we like to call it the re-eval appointment where we look we you know check all of the teeth to see if we had left any any Tartar behind which happens and there's always always plaque at that point too, right? So you're pretty much doing a cleaning again But obviously not that intense because a re-eval is usually done four to six weeks after their last appointment Sorry guys. I just heard my dog's barking. Let me just check why Tom isn't home. So I'm expecting a lot of packages. So I just want to make sure sorry But there's nobody here. So never mind So the re-eval appointment is typically done four to six weeks afterwards because you want to give the gums a chance to really, you know Heal up as much as possible, right? So that's why we do it that way and and at the re-eval Why are they barking? Oh I do have packages shoot you guys hold on. I'm just gonna pause this one moment There everybody's sorry about that So Tom isn't home and I had to answer the drawer because my packages came in with all of my supplies So I had to order like masks bibs toothbrushes all of that Because I am starting my own mobile hygiene business if you didn't know and I got most of my stuff in But I was just waiting for that. So that's really exciting So sorry guys, okay, so I had to pause it again because I had another package But I think we're good now because the exciting thing is is now I have everything that I need Yeah, it took time because I had to get in my sterilizer and that took time and then I had to get in my Dental chair my equipment my supplies and my instruments took the longest and I kind of need that before I see patients I have my first official non You know friend family member patient on Monday. I'm very excited. Anyway, sorry You guys probably don't want to hear about that you want to hear about how to book appointments, right? Okay, sorry, so where do we leave off? So I left off at the re-eval appointment, right? So at the re-eval appointment what I like to do and again, it could be different depending on the office You you might have a different It's called a soft tissue management program in place every office is a little bit different But that's kind of how we do it. Now sometimes so let's say the patient hadn't been in for two years Sometimes I can do half the mouth in the first appointment the second half of the mouth Or sorry the other half of the mouth the second appointment and I might be able to get the polish the fluoride and I guess that's it Done in the second appointment too, but if I can't because there might have just been a lot there Then what I do is I do the first half of the mouth in the first appointment the second half the second appointment and then the third appointment we kind of group it all together as the re-eval appointment and The polish and the fluoride at that time So I do not polish after every appointment if it's been a while since they had their Clean I can but as we've all learned if the gums are inflamed we shouldn't we all do it But you know, I think that that's just why we don't we don't do it at Every appointment if they're coming back anyway to finish up with the cleaning and another Reason for that is because we want them to come back to finish the cleaning if we do a really really good job The first time I hate to say it, but they might not come back the next time right so that's typically how I book those types of Appointments if it's been two year or sorry. Yes two years or more and we also Irrigate at those appointments too, which I forgot to mention so I apologize So we irrigate the first appointment so the half of the mouth and then we irrigate the second appointment for the other half Sometimes we give a local and Local anesthetic to that depends on the patient now the office where I'm in now She likes to give local anesthetic on Everybody if it's been two years or or more because she says that she wants the patients to understand that okay They're there there must be a lot there too much plaque too much Charter if my dentist is telling me that I need local Anesthetic to have my teeth clean, you know because that's not typical so she wants them to think okay Let's not wait two years next time right, but I my thinking is a little bit different I don't like to just give local anesthetic to anybody because I mean I'm a type where I don't like having local anesthetic I don't like having been the needle So if a dentist told me that I needed one I would probably go somewhere else But that's just me so everybody kind of does their own thing So depending on the office where you are in they might have a local anesthetic as part of the treatment So just keep that in mind too now if the patient hasn't been in for let's say five years You might only be able to do a one quad per appointment, you know that can happen too So that can be kind of hard to really Determine so at the new patient exam You would be checking around any way to see how much charter they have if you can tell they had heavy Charter in every single quadrant then you will probably do one Quadrant per appointment of about 45 minutes to an hour per appointment. That's possible too So then if you if you think about it, you know one two three four that's four Appointments and then even five appointments to do the re-eval at the end with the polish and the fluoride So think about that too, but as I'm saying this you you might be surprised where a Patient might tell you that they had their two clean five years ago Yet you're checking and you're like wow the things look pretty good You don't want to tell them that because they're just lucky, but you you might be thinking okay Five years will probably have to do a quadrant per appointment, but then you're you know, you're in there thinking okay Things actually look pretty good. I can do it all in one appointment. That's possible So you see how there's always exceptions or I've had patients come in where they insist that they had their teeth Cleaned a year ago. Yeah, there's so much there where I'm thinking okay I'm gonna have to do a quadrant per appointment if the gums are just so You know in bad shape if you're doing the probing and there's deep pockets Even if it's only been a year so they say you might have to do a quadrant per appointment So does that make sense? Um, I hope I explained everything so soft tissue Management some offices have it in some offices Just just you know ask you to do as much as you can in one appointment But hopefully not because sometimes you just simply can't and how I see it is If a patient hasn't had their teeth clean in five years You don't even want to do it all in one appointment because you kind of want to teach them Okay, we can't wait five years. There's a lot here and that's not healthy So I want them to know okay. I have 14 years experience But even I can't do it all in one appointment. So let's do two appointments or three appointments You know, let them know that okay, it takes longer It it costs more money the longer you wait to get your teeth clean, but then also always let them know to say After we're all done. It will be easy come in every three months every four months And then we can do everything in one appointment imagine, right and they go. Oh, well, yeah Really like that's possible. Yes, it is, but you have to come in more often So I hope that helped it took me a little while to do this video. I apologize I think Somebody had asked the question on soft tissue management a couple weeks ago So sorry it took me a little while, but I will post this now right away If you guys have any questions, please let me know and thank you so much for watching