Onboarding Assessment

Onboarding Assessment

This assessment gives us a snapshot of where you and your team are starting from. It also helps us identify areas in your practice that might need attention or a little tune-up. Be honest, it’s okay if you don’t have all the pieces in place yet! This assessment helps us determine where to begin. This isn’t about measuring what you know, but rather what you do and what your team understands. This is just a starting point, and we’ll build from here one step at a time and our goal is to guide you through the process.

Practice Info

Your Name(Required)

VISUAL CULTURE & MESSAGING

Do you utilize teledentistry prior to new patient appointments to review medical/dental history or any other concerns patients may have?(Required)
Do you understand the basic concept of creating a visual culture?(Required)
Do you have items (books, pamphlets, flyers, posters, etc.) throughout the office where a patient can see that your focus is on oral conditions and how they relate to overall wellness?(Required)
For items within your visual culture that you have in your office, can your team speak about them with competence?(Required)
Do you have messaging on your website or social media that promotes overall oral health and its relationship to wellness?(Required)
Do you have any marketing materials that promote overall oral health and its relationship to wellness?(Required)
Do you have clear policies for what you want your new patients to experience during the initial exam and appointment?(Required)
Do you provide written assessments to all new patients?(Required)

PERIODONTAL PROTOCOLS

Do you have clear policies for what you want your established patients to experience during routine prophy or periodontal maintenance appointments?(Required)
Do all patients have a periodontal chart, documenting pocket depth (PD), recession, line bleeding on probing (BOP), and clinical attachment level (CAL)?(Required)
For adult prophylaxes, how often do you record a periodontal chart?(Required)
For periodontal maintenance, how often do you record a periodontal chart?(Required)
Is your hygiene team calibrated on standardized criteria for detecting disease at the earliest possible stage—even before clinical signs fully appear? For example, is there an agreement that certain indicators, such as bleeding on probing, would warrant additional periodontal intervention?(Required)
In addition to clinical criteria for stability, are you using microbial profiling to determine treatment success?(Required)
Do you have periodontal maintenance protocols that are calibrated throughout your team and that are differentiated from normal prophylactic procedures?(Required)
Does your team have the verbal skills to explain what patients’ periodontal chart and radiographic findings mean for their oral and overall health?(Required)
Is your team competent diagnosing and differentiating the following conditions from a periodontal chart and radiographs:
Clinically Healthy(Required)
Gingivitis (Localized and Generalized)(Required)
Active Periodontal Disease (Localized and Generalized)(Required)
Stable Periodontal Disease (Localized and Generalized)(Required)
Do you organize and assess conditions that modify a patient’s risk of treatment success prior to SRP?(Required)
Do you have protocols regarding how often radiographs are taken?(Required)
Are radiographs taken as often as insurance allows? (Answer 'No' if radiographs are taken based on caries risk)(Required)
Practicing periodontal medicine requires a different skill set than traditional hygiene services. Does your team feel competent in these tasks:
Medical and dental history review(Required)
Radiographic interpretation(Required)
Periodontal probing including pocket depth, recession, line bleeding on probing, and calculating clinical attachment loss(Required)
Understanding the difference between clinically healthy and oral disease(Required)
Understanding the difference between gingivitis and periodontal disease(Required)
Words to describe the concern about inflammation(Required)
Discussing the significance of line bleeding on probing(Required)
Staging and grading periodontal disease(Required)
Providing literature to explain more about their concerns that the patient can take home and share with others(Required)

SALIVARY DIAGNOSTICS

Does your team understand that periodontal disease is microbial dysbiosis caused by pathogenic bacteria, yeasts, and viruses?(Required)
Has anyone on your team had experience administering and utilizing salivary diagnostic testing for treatment and treatment planning?(Required)
Do you feel comfortable prescribing short-term antibiotics in periodontal management?(Required)

ORAL-SYSTEMIC LINK

Are you and your office team aware of the significance of inflammation and its relationship to overall wellness?(Required)
Does your team understand the relationship between periodontal disease and systemic inflammation?(Required)
Does your assisting staff and hygiene team have the verbal skills to explain the significance of inflammation and its relationship to overall wellness?(Required)
Do you have any literature with graphics that explain the science of the connection between oral conditions and overall wellness?(Required)
Did you know that inflammation and oxidative stress are closely related—and often used interchangeably—as they both play a major role in impacting overall health and wellness?(Required)
Are you and your team well-versed in explaining how our profession is shifting from focusing on tooth loss in periodontitis to systemic health concerns?(Required)
Are you and your team aware that caries has systemic concerns as well?(Required)
Is your team aware that other systemic diseases and conditions such as acid reflux, sleep apnea, gastrointestinal reflux disease, diabetes, insulin resistance, and others have a significant oral impact?(Required)
Research suggests that dentists are aware of oral-systemic health connections, but do you and your team have these conversations with your patients regularly?(Required)
Has each one of your team members developed their own personal story and connection about how oral conditions affect cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and up to 57 other systemic diseases?(Required)
Do you have experience collaborating with physicians regarding inflammatory biomarkers?(Required)

FURTHER ASSESSMENTS

Does your team perform regular oral, head, and neck exams on patients for oral cancer screenings?(Required)
Does your team have a light-assisted oral cancer detection option?(Required)
Does your office offer orthodontic services with aligner therapy?(Required)
Does your team have protocols for assessing patients’ sleep and breathing?(Required)
Do you offer your patients any sort of screening test for potential sleep issues?(Required)
Do you have a standard assessment method for evaluating children with potential airway issues?(Required)

TREATMENT PROTOCOLS

Is your entire team comfortable offering services that are not covered by traditional dental insurance?(Required)
Does your team use powered instruments or hand instrumentation?(Required)
Does your team utilize air polishing or traditional polishing with prophy paste?(Required)
Does your team use any sort of irrigant at specific hygiene appointments?(Required)
Does your team feel comfortable offering adult fluoride services if the patients are at moderate or high risk for caries?(Required)
Do you have the space and time to allow repetitive care appointments or reevaluation appointments within the 1 – 1.5-month window?(Required)
Do you have the physical space to allow for more frequent appointments?(Required)
Is your team comfortable discussing fees and generalized concepts about time and financial commitment when proposing treatment or discussing the pathway to wellness?(Required)

HOMECARE / OHI

Does your team understand when to recommend certain homecare routines such as floss versus water flossing, adding enhancements to the water flosser, changing toothpastes, and introducing rinses?(Required)
Is your team comfortable in prescribing tools and products to help people improve their oral hygiene practices?(Required)
Does your team know the difference between halogen-releasing antimicrobial rinses and antimicrobial rinses?(Required)
Do you have any printed materials that can be dispensed to patients after the appointment to reinforce what they learned during the appointment?(Required)