Ken Johnson DDS

I am updating my broken appointment policy. For now on, no shows and same day cancellations will be charged $50.

Summer weather is here again, which might make a nice, cold can of pop sound appealing. An occasional coke won’t harm you, but be careful not to allow it to become a daily habit. I believe sugary drinks are the number one source of cavities. Even people who floss and brush effectively still get tooth decay if they are frequent pop drinkers.

And as always, remember to floss like you mean it. Don’t back off because it causes a little bleeding. In fact, if you see bleeding after flossing, it means you aren’t flossing enough. Bleeding gums harm your heart health, so take it seriously.

If you want premium dental care in a privately owned practice that won’t “sell” you a lot of nonsense, call 608-365-9456. You’ll be glad you did.

The number of last minute cancellations has become ridiculous. People hold a hygiene appointment for six months, receive multiple reminders, then cancel the evening before the appointment. This means my wife, who runs the office, has to scramble to try to contact people to fill the wasted time slots.

When trying to schedule someone for a cleaning, we often can’t get them in for several weeks because the appointments are already booked, often by people who are going to cancel at the last minute. We try to stress the importance of keeping appointments by having each new patient read and sign an acknowledgment that they’ll be charged a $25 broken appointment fee if they fail to give at least 24 hours notice before cancelling, but we seldom actually charge it, mostly because the $25 doesn’t even come close to making up for the wasted time, and patients often pitch a fit over it. So our practice has always been to only start charging repeat offenders, whom I regard as lousy patients anyways.

Here’s the thing; I’m getting too old to put up with being so casually disrespected anymore. Frankly, I’m not trying to build up the patient base anymore. So, for now on, those repeat offenders are simply going to be told they’ve lost their welcome here.

I’m sure many patients will respond to that by saying, “who cares? You’re not the only dentist in town”. I’m also sure that they will later realize they were mistaken. This area has transitioned to corporate-owned, PPO accepting offices. You’ll get a different dentist every year or two. You’ll almost always be seated late for your appointment. You WILL be charged there for broken appointments. When you have some bit of dentistry fail prematurely because it was poorly done, you’ll be told that dentist doesn’t work there anymore.

You’ll realize you should not have blown me off repeatedly and gotten yourself kicked out. If you want to see the highest quality dentist in this area, who stands behind his work, takes care to keep you comfortable, never rushes through your procedure because he’s overbooked, then consider showing the barest minimum courtesy of not wasting his time.

Finally, if you must cancel, don’t even think about making snide complaints to Meggan when you learn the next unbooked slot is several weeks away. It gauls us, too, because we know that many of those slots are booked by someone who has no intention of showing up, and by cancelling last minute, you’ve just become one of those people.

I know that life happens, and even the most courteous person might not be able to keep an appointment. And sometimes you simply forget. I’ve done that myself, and I would never resent a patient who has had one or two broken appointments over the years. But we have patients who have such a history of broken appointments that we literally say to one another, “ya think he’ll show up this time?”, when we see him on the schedule. Those people are now going to be weeded out, which will ultimately help the decent patients to not have to wait so long if they are forced to reschedule.

You get an email four days prior to your appointment. If you contact us right away to say you must reschedule, we don’t consider that a broken appointment. We don’t even note it in your chart, because you didn’t do anything wrong. But if you call on the day of the appointment, that doesn’t allow us time to get someone else in. If you do that repeatedly, that demonstrates a general disrespect, and you’ll be told to enjoy your new corporate dentist.

I have been seeing a lot of dental appliances being marketed by labs directly to patients via social media. No honest lab would do this, knowing it’s illegal. Also, they can seriously screw up your mouth.

If you have received unsatisfactory products from these labs, report them to your state professional licensing board to get them shut down.

Just a little while more, folks. Keep wearing those masks and washing those hands.

Just imagine how lonely Betty White would be if the rest of us died off!