Dental Insurance Tips

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Today I’d like to talk to the folks out there who have dental insurance. If you don’t have dental insurance, you can just skip on to something else. If you do, I’ve got a message for ya and it’s somethin’ I want ya to think about. We are getting toward the end of the year.
It’s finally starting to cool off outside, and feeling like fall a little bit. With your dental insurance, there are some things that folks don’t know about that because it’s very different than your medical, which people are a little more familiar with.
With your dental insurance, most folks, most policies, just have a set amount of money that the dental insurance provides every year. What happens is, is if you don’t use any of that money for the year, then it just goes away. You just lose it at the end of the year, on most folks’ policies. If you’ve got dental insurance and you haven’t been to the dentist yet this year, it’s really a great idea to get in before the end of the year.

Come in get your teeth cleaned. Most of the time that’s for free, so are the x-rays and the exam with your insurance, and then we can get your teeth checked out, see if there’s anything going on, and if you can get that done before the end of the year, then you end up gettin’ to use this year’s benefits. If you’re payin’ for that policy, if it’s just comin’ out of your check every month but you haven’t used any of it yet, and you feel like you need to get your teeth checked or cleaned, then give us a call. We’d be glad to get you in, get ’em checked out, and hopefully get anything fixed before the end of the year. Our number 501-753-0166.

We Care About Your Comfort

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So it turns out there are lots of things about going to the dentist that people think are uncomfortable, and as we think about things that we can do to make your visit more comfortable, there are lots of different details that we take into account, but one of those things, really, is one of the easiest ones, but it’s one that’s often overlooked, and that’s the chair that you sit in.
I can’t tell you how many times I get compliments on the chairs that we have here in our office, people that are in ’em for 20, 30, 40 minutes at a time and they just talk about how nice and relaxing it is. So actually, these chairs that we have here in our office, we actually picked these out specifically with you in mind. It’s just one of the details that we wanted to use to make your visit here as comfortable as possible.
And so, when we were getting ready to buy new chairs, we actually went out to a company in Oregon and toured their facilities, it’s one of the top dental companies in the country, and toured their facilities. We actually got to try out a lot of different chairs to see how they fit, see how they felt, and we did that, really, with our patients in mind, ’cause again, we know when you come here, there are things that are, sometimes, just not comfortable. So this is one of the details that we wanted to cover to make sure that your time here with us was as comfortable as possible.

So if you want to come somewhere where you can slow down for a little bit, take a little break, sit in a comfy chair, and yeah, maybe get your teeth worked on a little bit, but we’d be glad to have you here. Give us a call, we’ll get you in. You can come try out the comfy chairs. Yeah, I think you’re gonna like ’em. Our number 501-753-0166.

Online Dentistry vs. In-Person Visits

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Hi there! Today I just wanted to share a little bit of information with you because recently I’ve had several patients who have been asking me about the advertisements that they’ve been seeing about online teeth straightening. And so, you’ve probably seen some of the commercials, and most of the time they make it look really good. And so I just wanted to talk about a few things that you might want to think about before jumping into something like that. So first off let me just say that for most folks on a really easy case of moving around one or two teeth, doing something like that’s probably not gonna end up with a bad result at all. So, is it safe? That’s the first question.
And more than likely the answer to that’s gonna be yes. So I’m not gonna try to scare you away from doing that, but I do have a couple of things I think you should think about. The first thing I would be a bit concerned about would be the fact that you don’t have that face to face contact with an actual dentist. So a dentist is not looking at your teeth, not looking at your X-rays, and not looking for problems that might be there under the surface. So anybody can look and see if you’ve got crooked teeth or straight teeth, that’s not a problem. But it’s the details that I would be concerned about on the front end. But really to me, the biggest concern that I would have, would be on the back end of the case. So we all had issues, I’m sure, with ordering things online, and then trying to get a problem resolved or fixed or even just trying to send something back to a company after you’ve paid for it, and we know how difficult that can be sometimes.
So my worry would be, is that what happens toward the end of the case if the results that you’re getting aren’t really what you were expecting and you’re not satisfied with those results? How difficult is it going to be to get those issues resolved on the back end? So if you think about how difficult it can be even just to send something back to Amazon, or if you’re canceling your DirectTV or whatever, those things tend to be a little bit difficult, a little bit painful. But I’m having a really hard time figuring out how a person’s going to manage dealing with bad results at the end of a case if something were to go wrong. Because when you’re dealing with something online it’s pretty easy for people to just ignore you or shut you down cause you’ve already paid for the service. So anyway, is it safe? Yes, probably so.

They’re gonna be doing very similar methods to what a dentist would be doing if you went to see them. But I just think there’s a level of service and a level of care that you’re probably not gonna be getting if you’re going with the online version of that. So just some things to think about. We do do braces here at Mounts Dental Care, and if you just have some questions about the online stuff versus what we do, or just some questions in general about your teeth, feel free to let us know that’s what we’re here for, and you can give us a call and set up an appointment. Our number’s 501-753-0166.

Summertime Dentistry for Kids

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Hi there. So, you can tell summer’s here, and if you’re like me and you’ve got some kids, things get really busy in the summertime. You’ve got about eight or nine weeks while they’re out of school, and it seems like we’re trying to cram in all kinds of stuff. We’re tryin to finish up baseball season. We’ve got different camps and things to go to. We’re trying to fit in doctor’s appointments and different things like that. So one thing I was gonna make sure that you don’t forget is don’t forget to get your kids teeth cleaned. Summertime seems to be a great time to do that, if you’ve got enough time to pop in here and get their teeth checked and get em cleaned.
You know, lots of reasons why you should do that. One is just keepin em in a good routine, makin sure that they’re doing a good job taking care of their teeth, makin sure they’re doing a good job brushin and flossin, which surprisingly enough not all kids do. But we wanna make sure they’re not getting any cavities. Even in baby teeth, we wanna stay on top of those things, make sure kids aren’t having problems. And that’s not just the little kids either. So don’t forget about your big kids. If you’ve got kids that are goin off to college, we definitely wanna make sure that while they’re on break that they’re able to get in and get their teeth cleaned as well. I’ve had a few patients in the past that when they left home and went off to college, they didn’t make any more dental appointments. And then we’d see em about five or six years later after college was over, and they’d started workin, and turned out they had a lot of cavities. So we don’t want those kinds of things to happen.
So if you get a moment during the summer, give us a call, we can work your kids in. Let’s make sure we get their teeth cleaned and stay on top of things for them. Give us a call. Our number’s 501 753-0166.

Dry Mouth

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Hi, I’m Dr. Jason Mounts. I wanted to share a little information with you today about dry mouth. If you’re under, say 40 or 50 years old this conversation’s probably not gonna be very important to you. But for folks over that it may well be. What we have found, and actually just recently I’ve had a lot of patients come in that have been suffering with dry mouth. And that’s something that can happen as we age for multiple reasons. Sometimes it’s different medications that we’re on, sometimes it’s just part of the aging process, sometimes it can actually be a sign of an autoimmune disease as well. But anyway, if you’re suffering with that then you know how rough that can be and just drinking water doesn’t really seem to help that.
But recently we have come across a new product that has been really helpful for our patients that have been suffering with dry mouth. It’s something that, it’s just a little gel that you can put on your finger, rub around in your mouth a few times a day and it really does a great job of moisturizing things in there and making things feel better and getting rid of that sticky, dry feel that happens. So if dry mouth is something that you’ve been suffering with for a while and you haven’t really found anything that works or is helpful to you, give us a call, come in, let me take a look and let’s see if that might be something that would work for you. Our number is 501-753-0166. Our number is 501-753-0166.

Saving the World

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So we have funny saying around here. When people ask us how things have been going, we’ll tell them that, you know, we’ve just been saving the world, one tooth at a time. And, you know, as we do dentistry here at Mounts Dental Care, we know that we’re really not, well, maybe we’re making a difference for a few people, but yeah, we’re not really, probably, saving the world or anything like that. And for probably most of us, you know, the things that we do in our daily lives with our jobs and things, maybe we don’t feel like it’s that big of a deal. But today I wanted to talk to you about it because there are a lot of things that go on around the world, and around our communities, and things that we can make a difference in, and things that are a big deal.
And one of the things that I just wanted to mention to you about today is foster care. Foster care is something that my family got involved with about three years ago. It was kind of a interesting story about how that happened. It wasn’t something that we were really looking to get involved in, but it’s something that we felt called to do. And so we decided to start helping with the foster care system. And it’s been an amazing journey for us. There have been some times that have been kinda tough, but there have been so many times that it’s been such a blessing to us, and I’m hopeful that it’s been a blessing to the kids that we’ve been keeping.
Right now, we’ve got a little girl that’s been with us for almost a year and a half and she’s just fantastic. And it’s so good to be able to see her grow and mature and to be able to connect in ways that we know will be helpful for her throughout her life. But something you may not know is that in Arkansas, there’s about 5000 kids at any given time in the foster care system. And unfortunately, we’ve only got about 1600 foster family homes that are available.
So there’s definitely a shortage of places for the kids to stay. There are lots of different ways that people can help out. One is, obviously, just opening your home as a foster parent or a foster family. And that’s definitely needed. And, you know, for some people, that may be something that you would want to do or want to find more information about. And for others, you may say that that’s just not something I can do, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be involved and it doesn’t mean you can’t help. You can also, you can donate money.
There are lots of organizations around central Arkansas that work on the foster care system continually. And they’re always needing help, resources, and funds to be able to do the things that they do. Another way to help is to provide respite care. People probably don’t even know this, but lots of times, the foster families, they just need a place for the child to go maybe for a long weekend, just to give them a little bit of a break or go on a trip for themselves just to take a rest or something. And so you can actually just be a respite family, which is very similar to being a prolonged babysitter, I’d say, so it’s a really nice way to help out the child for a little while, but especially the families that are doing this.
And then another neat way to do it is that if you know of a family that’s doing foster care, you can actually sign up to be a foster support family. This is a really neat one because if you do that, you’re actually able to keep a kid for them for up to three days, so that if they’ve got, you know, a business meeting or something going on that they need a place for their child to stay, you can be a family that supports them in that way.
So there are also a lot of local organizations that help with foster care. And I want to mention a few of those. Specifically, The Call, Immerse Arkansas, and Project Zero. And you may also know that there are several local churches around here that are very involved in the foster care system, as well. And you may be thinking, you know, okay, this sounds like a pretty big problem. Would it really make a difference if one person decided to do that? Well, thinking about that kind of reminds me of a story that I heard one time about a young lady who was walking on a beach after a big storm. And the storm surge had come up and it had washed up just thousands and thousands of starfish. And this little girl is walking along the beach and she’s just throwing back starfish into the ocean. And there were lots of people out on the beach and a lot of adults that were watching her. And they were kind of laughing at each other. And one of the adults walked out there and looked at her and said, you know, do you really think that you can make a difference? I mean, you’re just one kid and you’re, you know, just throwing back one starfish at a time and there’s no way that you’re really gonna be able to save all of these starfish. There’s just too many. The little girl looked up at him and she kinda had a sad look on her face and she paused for a minute. And then she looked down at the ground and there was a starfish at her feet. And she picked it up and she threw it back into the ocean as far as she could. And then she looked back at the man and said, well, I made a difference for that one.
So can you fix the foster care system? No, one person can’t do that. But can you make a difference for one kid’s life? Yes, absolutely. And would it be worth it? Absolutely. So I hope that you’ll look for ways to maybe get involved. If this is something that you want to be a part of, it’s a great cause, great organizations that help with that. And I think that you will find that not only will the kids be blessed because you do that, but you will be as well.
Bio: Jason Mounts is a dentist in North Little Rock, Arkansas known for his kind approach to dentistry for kids through elderly patients. Services include teeth whitening, crowns, implants, veneers and more.

Teeth Whitening Tips

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Hi. I’m Dr. Jason Mounts. Very often, I have patients coming in asking about whitening their teeth. They usually have a couple of questions. One is, “Can I do it?” Then, “How well will it work?” But also, “Does it do any damage?”

For most folks, the answer to the first one is yes, you can do it. Then very often, the answer to does it do any damage is no, it does not, if you do it properly and with a little bit of supervision sometimes.

The main thing with that is you want to make sure that you have healthy teeth. You don’t want to be doing whitening treatments or bleaching treatments on teeth that have a lot of cavities in them. That could definitely cause some problems. We don’t want to do that.
Then the other part of that is that people would like to know how they can do it. There are several different treatment options for that. Obviously, there are some over the over-the-counter products. Patients get different results with that. Some work fairly well, and others just don’t do much at all. But there are definitely some options for over-the-counter products.
The other option is to come into your dental practice and let the dentist or the hygienist take care of it for you. We have two really good systems that we use here in our office. It just kind of depends on what you’re looking for and how you want to do it. One option is to do a take home system. It’s really nice. It’s very easy. You do it at home by yourself, and the cost is down a little bit on that one as well. That’s a nice way to do it. The downside to it is, is that it’s kind of your responsibility to do it. If you don’t do it as frequently as you’d like, the results don’t seem to be quite as good as they could have been otherwise.
Then the other option is to just come in and let us treat it here in the office. We do Zoom Whitening here. The nice thing about the Zoom Whitening is, is you come in one time for about an hour and a half appointment and we can get your teeth significantly whiter in a very short amount of time. It’s a really nice way to do it.
We’re actually running a promotion there for that now. We’ve got a nice discounted price on that. If it’s something you think you’d be interested in doing or you want some more information about, just give us a call. Our number is 501-753-0166. We’d love to help you out with that.

Kid’s Concerns

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Hi there. You may not know, but February is national children’s dental health month. Here at Mounts Dental Care North Little Rock, we are a family dental practice. We see people from infants up to 80 or 90 plus. I want to talk to you a little bit about kids because I often get questions from parents about things like what’s the right age to bring a child in? Or what’s the big deal, why would I want to bring a kid in? They’re going to lose their teeth anyway. Is it really that important?
Just wanted to hit on those two topics real quick. The first thing is, is what is the right age? Well, there’s lots of different opinions on that and some people want you to bring them in really early on, like around one or so. My thinking is that at that age, it’s going to be really hard for you to even be able to look or check anything.
What I like for my patients to do is to bring their kids in roughly when they’re around three years old. Just have them come in, sit with them when they’re here to get their teeth cleaned. It allows us to start having interactions with the kids and we have found that by the time it’s time to actually check their teeth or do things on them, they are so comfortable being here that it’s really no problems at all.
It’s really nice. We just have them come in, hang out with mom or dad, or when you’re here getting your teeth cleaned. Lots of times in the very first visit, they’re interested in letting you count their teeth very first thing. It really just help start that relationship off on a really easy calm level.
Another reason that we like to do that is really the fear factor. I have lots of adults that are in their 50s or 60s that still have dental anxiety and most of that stems from things that happened when they were kids. What we like to do is try to eliminate those fearful experiences early in hopes that as they grow older, that they won’t have any type of anxiety from there.
That’s one part of it. Another thing is really trying to eliminate problems early. Prevention is a big key in kids and finding cavities early on is a big help. It eliminates the amount of time there in the chair and how long you’re having to work on their teeth. Another thing is, is that dental pain actually causes several problems in kids.
Sometimes it goes unnoticed by parents, but it can cause problem sleeping, it can cause behavior issues and it can also even cause problems concentrating at school. Those are things that we want to avoid and lots of times the kids don’t even know why they’re doing those things and it can be coming from tooth problems.
If you’ve got little kids and they haven’t been to the dentist yet, or if you’ve got bigger kids and they’re looking for a place to go, we’d love to have them come in. Let us get a chance to meet them early on, try to get them comfortable with being here and I think you’ll find that kids do great with us.
We love having kids here, and we really love taking kids early on, giving them really good experiences so that things are easy for them really for their entire life as far as their dental needs go. Give us a call or check out our website. We’ve got some extra information on there as well, but we’d love to have you here.

A New Year For Your Teeth

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Hey, Dr. Mounts here. And it’s that time of year again, when we’ve opened all of our Christmas presents and we’re taking down the Christmas decorations, and we’re trying to figure out what our New Year’s Resolutions are gonna be. I know almost everybody makes them. Did you know I found out today that about 80% of the New Year’s Resolutions that get made fail by the first of February? So that’s a pretty sad statistic. But anyway, they don’t always make it too far into the year. I think there’s a few reasons for that, and I think one is that people just generally don’t like change and so trying to change things is hard. Also, too, when you’ve got a pretty big change that you’re needing to make, it seems like people get really overwhelmed with that, and so they just have a hard time getting started.
I think that’s also the case with people who haven’t been to the dentist in a long time. I think there are things that keep them from coming in, just from picking up the phone and making that first call. I think trying to make that change is difficult. I think the feeling of being overwhelmed because they know there are a lot of problems in there that need to be dealt with. Also, too, there’s the worry that they’re gonna come in and the dentist is gonna yell at them because they haven’t been in for a long time and now there’s just a big mess to fix.
Well I’ll have you know that I’ve been doing this for 15 years, and I have yet to run across a patient that I had to yell at. So that’s not gonna happen if you come here. And really, I’ll tell you that’s what we’re good at here, is trying to help people figure out how to take care of their mouth and how to take care of big problems. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people come in overwhelmed and say, “There’s not anything you’re gonna be able to do with this, it’s just time to go to dentures.” And we seem to always be able to find a way to help them get their teeth fixed, find a way to help them be able to afford it, and give them a good idea of what things are gonna be like when they’re done. So we try to look for goals to reach. We try to find good ways to obtain those goals, and try to help patients get to what it is they want their mouth to be like when it’s all said and done.
So if it’s been a while since you’ve been to the dentist, and you’ve been putting it off, and you’re thinking, “What kind of New Year’s Resolution am I gonna do this year?” Don’t worry about losing weight, let’s just fix your teeth, all right? Let’s come in, let’s try to get things healthy there, so that you can have something that you can smile about, something that you’re proud about, and give us a chance to help you walk through that, and I think you’ll be presently surprised that we can come up with some good ways to get things fixed for you. So give us a call, just pick up the phone. It’s 501-753-0166.

A Holiday Message

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I can’t believe Christmas is here! I remember as a kid that it seemed to take forever to come around.  Now I can’t slow things down enough!  And as joyful as Christmas is, it can be just as stressful. Stress about family gatherings. Stress about buying presents. Stress about travel plans. We even see an increase in patients that have jaw pain this time of year…from clenching their teeth over Christmas stress! 

So this year, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas. I hope you have quality time with friends and loved ones. And I hope that this year’s Christmas is full of joy, and a little less stress.

Merry Christmas!