Initial Consultation

The first time you meet with your doctors is critical. Much of the planning for the rest of the treatment will be done during the first consultation. The dentist will assess the health of the teeth and jaw bone. You will also need diagnostic imaging during this visit. Physicians have relied on computerized axial tomography scans (CAT) for years. Today, many dentists rely on 3D imaging scans to provide a detailed view of the mouth and skull. 3D scans are quick and straightforward to perform. A Cone Beam Imaging System is at the heart of the 3D scanner. The cone beam is used to take hundreds of pictures of the face. These pictures are used to compile an exact 3D image of the face and jaw’s inner mechanisms.

Surgery

After the initial consultation, you are scheduled for surgery implantation, where the dentist will place the actual dental implants, and the new teeth are fitted and adjusted. While these won’t be your final implants, you will leave our offices after this visit with beautiful, fixed, functional teeth.

Follow-Up Appointment

After 3-6 months, when the implants are fused to the natural bone, the dentist will take new impressions of your mouth and prepare a final, stronger, permanent set of teeth adjusted to a perfect fit. This approach helps ensure that the teeth will last for decades and provide maximum support, beauty, and function to the patient.

Specialist Care

Dental implants fall into the category of restoration dentistry and have their own subcategory called implantology. Implant surgery can be done by a periodontist, a dentist, or a dentist with advanced implantology training. Because of the specialist training necessary to perform the procedure, it’s common for the dental professional to charge a higher fee than other services.

General Anesthetic

Some patients may choose to undergo a general anesthetic during the dental implant procedure, meaning the patient is asleep for the whole procedure. This approach is more expensive and requires an anesthesiologist to be present for the entire surgery. It’s more common to perform the procedure using a local anesthetic, meaning the areas the dentist is working on are numbed, but the patient is awake. Some patients might be too nervous during the procedure if they are awake. If this is a problem, you should consider asking for a sedative to ease your anxiety if you’ll be under local anesthetic.

Bone Grafts

Patients who have lost a lot of bone may also require bone grafts. Bone grafts are performed in a separate procedure, several months before the implant is placed, and will require several months to heal and for the graft to fuse into the regular bone. This extra procedure will, of course, mean additional costs. This also means you won't be able to have the procedure done in one trip since the graft will take time to grow into the bone, and you need to allow tissues to heal.

Teeth Location

Which teeth are being replaced also influences the cost of treatment. Front teeth are much more challenging for the surgeon to work on and require more skill to make the implant look like a natural tooth. As a rule, visible teeth tend to be more expensive, and the surgery tends to be longer.