Appointments

[Dougsey]

Hi, I'm curious how your ortho offices work.

My son has brackets but no archwire yet because he needed a couple extractions first. He had one bracket come off in his sleep and the office won't glue it back on during the scheduled 2pm archwire install appt. because they "only glue brackets in the morning".

This seems completely ridiculous to me. Aren't unglued brackets somewhat common? I don't want to take him out of school for every little thing. What do you think?

We are both planning on getting braced through this office. I really like the ortho doc but I'm struggling with what seems to be silly policies.

[cata]

That sounds ridiculous to me as well, especially since it only takes a couple minutes. It seems like they should put it back on before they put the arch wire in... at least that's what I think.

[Featheryy1221]

Seems a bit ridiculous. It seems like it'd be an easy fix. But perhaps the ortho is only at the office in the morning and the assistants have to have the ortho's approval before putting the bracket back on? Not sure. I know my office tends to book their shorter appointments in the afternoon and longer ones in the morning. They might have planned that his appointment would be short since he was just going to get an archwire placed and they consider fixing his bracket a longer appointment.
Hope things work out okay!

[MrsCharisma]

I think it's probably a combo of what other posters have said...

1) if they haven't allotted time for a bracket replacement then they might not have time to do it.
2) Mine schedules long appointments before lunch so I assume the quick regular appointments can get in/out and more people can be seen in the afternoon.
3) bracket replacement is ALWAYS done by my ortho. The assistants prep the tooth but he places/positions the bracket and "sets" it. It is quite a delicate procedure and he knows *exactly* the orientation it needs to be in.

I would just try for those 1st of the day appointments when scheduling and/or take advantage of the endless combination of days off, early releases, late starts, etc that have kids out of school.

Good luck.

[BracesGuy]

My ortho does all the work on my teeth himself so he will do whatever is necessary at that appointment (the only brackets I have had pop off have been during fitting of a new archwire).

Fitting a bracket will require a decision on placement that depends on how the ortho wants that tooth to move and be positioned. Slotting a first archwire in is not such a discretionary process.

Perhaps your ortho is only there in the morning or your son is scheduled to see an assistant and not the ortho at 2pm? Why not ask the office? If they are inflexible perhaps you could switch to a morning appointment to avoid two visits.

[kathydell]

I would suggest speaking with the ortho directly and not the staff. It is so quick to put a bracket back on, I'm sure they can accomodate you. I know they schedule different kinds of appointments for different times of the day but this situation is a little different. I've found the staff to sometimes be inflexible but my ortho herself is really flexible if I can get her directly.