Darren Gardner DDS, Provo Dentist
On Feb. 28th 2012, the Pew Center on the States released a report entitled "A Costly Dental Destination" which highlighted a trend for an increasing number of patients seeking emergency dental treatment from hospital emergency rooms. It is a trend that sadly is a product of patients that are not getting regular dental care. What some may not realize is that often the Emergency Room isn't equipped for dental care, and all they can do is prescribe antibiotics and pain medication. (You should also be aware that even some emergency clinics aren't prescribing pain medications because of the growing number of patients who are posing to be in pain so they can get prescription painkillers.) Emergency rooms rarely provide the treatment that is going to lead to complete healing and you will still need to see a dentist, or the problem will come back. The best solution, except in cases of rapidly spreading infection and swelling, is to call your regular dentist.
Most dentists are willing to take calls after hours, in the middle of the night, or whenever, to help one of their patients get out of pain. A few things you should be aware of though; first, dentists get a lot of calls from drug seeking patients who make up a story so the dentist will call them in some pain medication.
By law, a physician or dentist cannot prescribe any medications to a patient they have not seen within the last six months. (This includes even patients that have been long time patients. So if you haven't kept your six month appointment, the dentist will have to see you before he can prescribe anything.) Every dentist has gotten a call from one of these drug seekers who is hoping the dentist will be lazy and just call in a prescription. The dentist may arrange to meet the patient at the office only to be stood up by somebody who never intended to show up. This is in the back of every dentist's mind when he recieves a call from somebody who he has never seen before or doesn't know.
So in case of emergency, it is better to have a dentist you can call that knows you. If you don't have a dentist and have an emergency, I would suggest that you get a referral to a dentist from a friend and call that dentist and tell them who referred you. This will help them know that you are a legit patient and not someone just after painkillers.
Be prepared to pay for treatment at the time of service. Some dentists will require payment before they see you to avoid having patients steal services, which happens most commonly with emergency appointments. Other dentists will only see patients of record for emergencies to prevent stealing of services.
If you currently don't see a dentist regularly, I highly recommend finding one. Regular checkups will catch problems while they are small and affordable to treat. Problems that are neglected become dental emergencies. If you have been seeing your dentist regularly and have a dental emergency, he will bend over backwards to take care of you. I encourage my patients to call me any time they are having a dental emergency. I would prefer that my patients are out of pain and comfortable over the weekend than waiting to see me on Monday. I am happy to help!
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