A Beautiful smile and healthy teeth can conribute greatly to your happiness, self-confidence and quality of life. Orthodontic treatment creates beautiful smiles through bringing the teeth, lips and jaws into proper alignment and harmony with each other. Correctly positioned teeth are easier to clean, function more efficiently and are more likely to last you a lifetime.
Orthodontists are highly trained dental specialists whose expertise is tooth alignment for children, teenagers and adults. An orthodontist must complete a 3 year full-time specialist program beyond their dental school training to become a registered specialist. Fundamental components of this full-time specialist program include the design and completion of a research project and rigorous theoretical and clinical examinations. Research projects require careful collection, investigation and interpretation of data and statistical results. This specialist training allows orthodontics to clearly distinguish between clinical effectiveness and marketing hype, which is extremely important in this era of mass media and information overload. Therefore, specialist orthodontists are very different to general dentists who dabble in orthodontics.
The Australian Society of Orthodontists recommends an orthodontic assessment for patients around the age of 8 years. Such an assessment is a good opportunity to assess the development of the dentition and to screen for orthodontic anomalities. Appropriate and timely interception of various orthodontic anomalies can result in favourable outcomes in carefully selected cases. However, it is important for any treatment modality to be justified from the cost-benefit perspective.
The majority of orthodontic patients are children and adolescents, however, orthodontic treatment can be performed at any age if the teeth and gums are healthy. Many adults are now undergoing orthodontic treatment to improve their dental alignment and appearance.
Important Points to Consider:
- Is the practitioner providing your orthodontic treatment a general dentist or a registered specialist orthodontist? The registration and qualifications of your practitioner canbe easily checked on the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency (AHPRA) website. http://www.ahpra.gov.au/
- Obtaining an all-inclusive fee is best to avoid confusion and unexpected costs. Ask whether the fee includes all of the following: Consultation, pre-treatment reviews and orthodontic record-taking, orthodontic appliances and post-treatment reviews. Beware of hidden or undisclosed fees. Patients should be made fully aware of the cost of service from the outset.
- Ask for all relevant item numbers for the proposed treatment. This will allow you to check with your private health fund regarding rebates.
- As per the Dental Board of Australia guidlines, adequate informed consent must be obtained prior to commencing any treatment. Patients must be informed with respect to the following: the nature and purpose of the proposed treatment, any expected benefits and limitations, any relevant associated risks, the likely consequences of not undertaking treatment and an outline of all reasonable treatment options with their respective asvantages and disadvantages.