Dental treatment guides
A guide for each procedure, written once and properly: what the treatment actually involves, the alternatives worth considering, how long the result lasts, and how dental plans handle it. The individual code pages cover the billing detail; these cover the dentistry.
Preventive
Category overview →Dental Cleanings: What a Prophylaxis Actually Includes
A prophylaxis is the routine cleaning: removal of plaque, hardened calculus and surface stain from the crowns of the teeth, follo…
Fluoride Varnish and Gel: Who Benefits, Who Pays
Topical fluoride is applied to the teeth at the end of a preventive visit to strengthen enamel against acid attack. Fluoride work…
Restorative
Category overview →Amalgam Fillings: Safety, Durability and the Insurance Downgrade
Amalgam is the silver-grey filling material that generations of dentists used as the default for back teeth. It is an alloy of si…
Core Build-Ups: Why Insurers Dispute Them
A build-up is the foundation work done before a crown. Once the decay and the old restoration are removed, there is sometimes not…
Dental Crowns: Materials, Appointments, Cost and Coverage
A crown is a custom-made cap that covers the entire visible part of a tooth. The tooth is reduced on all sides and on the biting…
Dental Inlays: Where They Fit Between Fillings and Crowns
An inlay is a restoration made outside the mouth and then cemented into a prepared cavity. Unlike a filling, which is shaped in p…
Front Tooth Fillings and Bonding: What to Expect
A composite restoration on a front tooth is a bonded, tooth-coloured repair. The material is a resin filled with glass or ceramic…
Onlays and Partial Crowns: When They Beat a Full Crown
An onlay is a lab-made or milled restoration that covers one or more cusps of a back tooth. It is the middle ground between a fil…
Posts and Cores: What They Do and What They Do Not
When a root-treated tooth has broken down to or below the gumline, there is nothing left above the gum for a crown to grip. A pos…
Prefabricated Crowns: Steel, Resin and Zirconia Caps
A prefabricated crown comes out of a drawer rather than a laboratory. It is a ready-made shell — stainless steel, resin, or a too…
Re-Cementing a Loose Crown, Bridge or Veneer
Re-cementation is putting back something that came off. A crown, bridge, inlay, onlay, veneer or post and core detaches from the…
Repairing a Crown or Bridge Instead of Replacing It
When porcelain chips off a crown, inlay, onlay or veneer, the choice is between replacing the whole restoration and repairing the…
Temporary Crowns: When They Are Billed Separately
These are the placeholder restorations of crown and bridge work. A provisional crown is a temporary cap worn while a definitive c…
Temporary Fillings: Why a Tooth Gets Sealed Twice
An interim restoration is a filling that is not trying to be permanent. It seals a tooth, removes the immediate source of pain or…
Veneers: Composite vs Porcelain, and What They Cannot Fix
A veneer is a thin facing bonded to the front of a tooth to change its colour, shape or alignment. Three versions have their own…
White Fillings on Back Teeth: Cost, Lifespan and Downgrade Clauses
A posterior composite is a bonded tooth-coloured filling in a back tooth. It has become the default restoration in most practices…
Endodontics
Category overview →Apexification: Saving a Tooth With an Unfinished Root
When a permanent tooth loses its pulp before the root has finished forming — usually from trauma or deep decay in a child — the r…
Apicoectomy: Root End Surgery Explained
An apicoectomy is surgery at the tip of a root. The gum is lifted, a small window is made in the bone over the root end, the last…
Baby Tooth Root Canals: Pulpal Therapy on Primary Teeth
This is root canal treatment for a baby tooth, sometimes called a pulpectomy. The whole pulp is removed — crown and roots — the c…
Endodontic Add-Ons: Isolation, Canal Prep and Bleaching
Three procedures reported alongside endodontic treatment. Surgical isolation of a tooth with rubber dam (D3910) covers the additi…
Pulp Capping: The Last Step Before a Root Canal
A pulp cap is an attempt to save a nerve that has been exposed or nearly exposed during removal of deep decay. A protective mater…
Pulpotomy and Pulpal Debridement: Emergency Relief
A pulpotomy removes the pulp tissue from the crown of the tooth while leaving the tissue in the roots intact. The chamber is open…
Root Amputation and Hemisection: Saving Part of a Tooth
This group covers procedures that alter the root structure of a tooth rather than just treating the inside of it. Root amputation…
Root Canal Complications: Blocked Canals, Broken Files
These codes cover the things that go wrong or get in the way during root canal treatment. A canal may be blocked by a calcificati…
Root Canal Retreatment vs Surgery vs Extraction
Retreatment is a second root canal on a tooth that has already had one. The old filling material is removed from the canals, the…
Root Canal Treatment: The Full Picture
Root canal treatment removes the pulp — the nerve and blood supply — from inside a tooth, cleans and shapes the canal system, and…
Periodontics
Category overview →Full-Mouth Debridement vs a Regular Cleaning
These two codes cover full-mouth scaling in situations that neither a routine cleaning nor scaling and root planing describes. D4…
Gingivectomy: Reshaping Overgrown or Excess Gum
A gingivectomy removes excess gum tissue; a gingivoplasty reshapes it. The two are usually done together and reported under the s…
Gum and Bone Grafting Around Teeth
Regenerative periodontal procedures attempt to rebuild what the disease destroyed, rather than reshaping around it. Bone grafting…
Gum Surgery: Flap and Osseous Procedures Explained
When non-surgical treatment leaves deep pockets that continue to bleed and lose attachment, surgery gives direct access. The gum…
Scaling and Root Planing: Do You Actually Need It?
Scaling and root planing is the treatment for periodontitis. Unlike a routine cleaning, which addresses the crowns of the teeth,…
Prosthodontics, removable
Category overview →Complete Dentures: The First Year and Beyond
A complete denture replaces all the teeth in one jaw. It is an acrylic base shaped to the ridge and palate, carrying a full set o…
Denture Relines and Rebases: Keeping a Denture Fitting
As the ridge under a denture shrinks, the appliance stops fitting. A reline adds a new layer of material to the tissue surface of…
Denture Repairs and Adjustments: What Each Fix Costs
This group covers keeping an existing denture working: adjusting a base that has developed a sore spot, repairing a fractured bas…
Overdentures on Natural Teeth: The Cheaper Full Arch
An overdenture fits over retained natural teeth rather than resting only on the ridge. A few strategically placed roots — often c…
Partial Dentures: Metal, Acrylic or Flexible
A partial denture replaces some of the teeth in an arch and is held in place by the teeth that remain. It has a base carrying the…
Temporary and Flipper Dentures: Filling the Gap
An interim denture is a temporary appliance worn during a transitional period — while extraction sites heal before a definitive d…
Maxillofacial prosthetics
Category overview →Facial and Ocular Prosthetics: Rebuilding After Surgery
Maxillofacial prosthetics restore parts of the face lost to cancer surgery, trauma or congenital difference: a nose, an ear, an e…
Maxillofacial Appliances: Stents, Splints and Carriers
This group covers the smaller custom appliances that support head and neck medical care: feeding aids for infants with clefts, sp…
Obturators: Closing a Palate After Cancer Surgery
An obturator closes a hole between the mouth and the nasal cavity or sinus — most often the defect left after surgery to remove a…
Implant services
Category overview →Dental Implants: Timeline, Total Cost and Long-Term Care
Placing an implant means surgically inserting a titanium or zirconia screw into the jawbone to act as an artificial tooth root. T…
Implant Abutments and Surgical Guides: The Parts Between
An abutment is the connector between the implant buried in the bone and the crown above the gum. It screws into the implant and p…
Implant Bridges: Retainers, Pontics and Full Arches
These codes cover the retainer units of a bridge supported by implants rather than natural teeth. Two or more implants carry a fi…
Implant Crowns: Screw-Retained, Cemented and Materials
This is the visible tooth: the crown fitted on top of an implant. Abutment-supported crowns are cemented or screwed onto a separa…
Implant Dentures: Snap-On vs Fixed Full Arch
These codes cover full-arch and partial-arch dentures supported by implants. Two broad kinds exist. An implant overdenture (D6110…
Peri-Implantitis: The Main Long-Term Threat to Implants
Implants need professional care, and when the tissue around them becomes diseased they need treatment. Implant maintenance (D6080…
When an Implant Fails: Repair, Rescue or Removal
Implant restorations are mechanical assemblies, and mechanical things need servicing. These codes cover replacing worn attachment…
Prosthodontics, fixed
Category overview →Bridge Retainer Crowns: The Anchors Either Side
A retainer is the crown at the end of a bridge, cemented onto a natural tooth — the abutment — and carrying the pontic that repla…
Dental Bridges: Cost, Cleaning and Bridge vs Implant
A pontic is the replacement tooth in the middle of a bridge — the part that fills the gap. It is not attached to anything underne…
Oral & maxillofacial surgery
Category overview →Bone Grafting and Sinus Lifts for Implants
These procedures build bone where there is not enough of it. A socket or ridge preservation graft (D7953) places material into a…
Draining a Dental Abscess: Urgent Care and What Follows
When infection collects as pus in the tissues, it has to get out. An incision and drainage makes an opening into the abscess, rel…
Facial Fractures: Jaw, Cheekbone and Wound Repair
These codes cover the surgical treatment of facial fractures and associated wounds. The fundamental distinction is between open a…
Frenectomy and Tongue-Tie: Reading the Evidence
A frenum is a small fold of tissue connecting the lip or tongue to the gum. When one is unusually tight, thick or attached too cl…
Jaw Cysts and Tumours: Removal, Biopsy and Recovery
Cysts in the jaws are fluid-filled cavities lined with epithelium, and most are odontogenic — derived from tooth-forming tissue.…
Jaw Surgery: Orthognathic Procedures and the Timeline
Orthognathic surgery repositions the jaws. Where the upper and lower jaws are mismatched in size or position beyond what braces c…
Oral Lesions and Biopsy: The Three-Week Rule
A biopsy removes tissue so it can be examined microscopically and diagnosed. An incisional biopsy takes a representative sample o…
Other Oral Surgery: Tori, Sinus, Nerve and Bone Work
This group collects the less frequently reported oral surgical procedures: closing a communication between the mouth and the sinu…
Ridge Reshaping After Extractions: Preparing for a Denture
These procedures reshape the jaw ridge and the soft tissue over it, usually to allow a denture to fit. Alveoloplasty smooths and…
Surgical Extraction: Why a Tooth Has to Be Cut Out
A surgical extraction is used when a tooth will not come out with forceps alone. The gum is lifted as a flap, bone is removed aro…
TMJ Disorders: Conservative Care First
These codes cover treatment of the temporomandibular joint, from conservative appliances through minimally invasive joint procedu…
Tooth Extraction: Healing, Dry Socket and Replacing the Gap
A simple extraction removes a tooth that is fully erupted and accessible, using elevators and forceps without cutting gum or remo…
Wisdom Teeth: Should They Come Out?
An impacted tooth has failed to erupt into its normal position, usually because there is no room for it or it is angled wrongly.…
Orthodontics
Category overview →Braces and Aligners: Cost, Duration and How Ortho Insurance Works
Comprehensive orthodontic treatment is a complete course of tooth movement to correct alignment and bite. It covers the whole pro…
Orthodontic Adjustments, Retainers and Habit Appliances
These codes cover the components of orthodontic care reported outside a single comprehensive course. A pre-orthodontic treatment…
Adjunctive general services
Category overview →Dental Sedation: Nitrous, IV and General Anaesthesia
These codes cover the range of pain and anxiety control in dentistry. Local anaesthesia (D9215) numbs the treatment area and is i…
Emergency Dental Visits: Relief Before the Real Fix
These codes cover the treatments that make a patient comfortable without necessarily being definitive. Palliative treatment of de…
Night Guards for Grinding: Hard, Soft and Sleep Apnoea
An occlusal guard is a custom appliance worn over the teeth, almost always at night, to absorb the force of grinding and clenchin…
Teeth Whitening: In-Office vs Take-Home
Professional whitening uses peroxide gels to lighten the colour of teeth. Two delivery methods have their own codes: in-office wh…