Trust

A patient had an appointment today to have an onlay fabricated for a tooth that had a very old large silver mercury filling. An onlay is a laboratory processed ceramic restoration placed when a filling or a cavity is very large and the tooth would be at risk for fracturing if another filling was placed. I don't place many onlays (relatively speaking) because the direct bonded resin restorations that I place are done extremely well and last 2 decades. Onlays also cost three and a half times what my direct resin restorations cost so it is definitely in MY best (financial) interest to place onlays instead of direct resin fillings.

My patient of 34 years was given some novocaine, had the rubber dam placed 10 minutes later and I removed all of the old silver mercury filling. Of course there was tooth decay under the old filling...there always is. I used my good clinical judgement to tell Jeanine, my long time assistant that I was going to place a direct restoration instead of a ceramic onlay.

The direct resin turned out great and when I completed treatment, I informed my patient that she had saved $1300 today because I didn't think that her tooth needed anything more than a filling.

MY patients TRUST ME to do the right thing and I will ALWAYS place YOUR best interest ahead of MY financial interest.

It is the right thing to do; it is the ONLY thing to do.