How long after 1st consult to get your braces on?

Message

#16 Post by **felicia** » Thu Mar 04, 2010 5:47 pm

I live in a city with 1,5 million people. I go to a very busy practice. Very high recommended, modern, respectable.
I will be honest with you, after my initial consultation, I could have set an appointment to start my treatment the very next day if I wanted to, but I set it for a week later because of my work schedule.
It took your ortho's office a very looooooooong time to start your treatment. I just cannot imagine how busy can they be? Is it a big office? Is it a small office? Are you in United States? If yes, what part? How many orthodontic assistants do they have?.....I don't know, give me some clues so that I can understand why it took them so long...I'm curious.

#17 Post by **lealicious** » Thu Mar 04, 2010 7:20 pm

felicia wrote:I live in a city with 1,5 million people. I go to a very busy practice. Very high recommended, modern, respectable.
I will be honest with you, after my initial consultation, I could have set an appointment to start my treatment the very next day if I wanted to, but I set it for a week later because of my work schedule.
It took your ortho's office a very looooooooong time to start your treatment. I just cannot imagine how busy can they be? Is it a big office? Is it a small office? Are you in United States? If yes, what part? How many orthodontic assistants do they have?.....I don't know, give me some clues so that I can understand why it took them so long...I'm curious.

Hey felicia,

I'm not in the US, I'm in Melbourne Australia. The office that I go to is 1 of 5 locations throughout Melbourne. I believe my orthodontist works at more than 1 of these offices, so he may only be at the one I go to a few times a week. I don't think they would give me an appointment at another office because all my records would be in the one place, and it's a fair distance to the other ones.

Every time I would book in for another consult, or to take my moulds and x-rays, they would give me the next available appointment which would be a few months away. They would also put me on a waiting list in case there was a cancellation before my scheduled appointment.

So I think maybe he'll have a set number of available appointments per week for different things. For example, a certain number of new people coming to see him, a certain number of people coming to put there braces on, and a certain number of people coming to get adjustments. These are the only reasons I can think of which would make my waiting time so long.

So yeah, it has taken a while. I'm just glad I'll finally be getting my braces on in about 2 weeks.

#18 Post by **felicia** » Thu Mar 04, 2010 10:29 pm

That makes sense now...Wow, we are so spoiled here in United States. I wish it would that easy everywhere as it is here. I come from an eastern European country, where I've never even heard about braces when I was a teenager (I'm 27 now). I believe they do orthodontics in my country too by now, but I imagine it is very expensive and available only in the major cities.

#19 Post by **Takako** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 4:31 pm

See, my ortho did everything as fast as possible, but still focused on me getting my teeth healthy and ready. I had my consult, then a cleaning, then had moulds made and spacers put it, then more spacers, then brackets, then extractions, then finally wire. But that all took only a month or two, and all of the wait time was for things like making the spacers work or my mouth to heal.

Sun Mar 07, 2010 8:16 pm

The time between my consult and my bracing day was a little over a month. I could've gotten braced that next morning. However, I was scheduled to have all my wisdom teeth extracted and to get a crown placed on one of my teeth, so I had to go through surgery and the crown procedure before I could get braces. I had no idea that they could put them on so quickly!

#21 Post by **browneyedgrl** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 10:12 pm

I had my consultation in November 2007 and got my braces the following January.