Dr. J. Peter St. Clair

If you did not catch Part 1 of this column last week, you can read it at www.thetowncommon.com. As I explained last week, dental insurance is not really insurance. All plans available are dental benefit plans, intended to cover basic services. True insurance covers...

As a general rule, the team at my office is discouraged from using the word “insurance”, because dental insurance is not really insurance. They are dental benefits. True insurance covers loss and damage.  I offer medical insurance to my team as all small businesses do...

If you have read these columns in the past, you have seen me write about periodontal (gum) health and its relationship to systemic health. There is a slew of scientific evidence that poor periodontal health is not good for you systemically. It has been linked to heart...

I attended a continuing education course a while back entitled “Hit Man or Healer?” The course was given by a well-known leader in the dental profession. The basic premise of the course was the notion that we have a lot more science, studies and data available today...

There are five major reasons that people do not get the necessary dental care they need; six if you count the recent pandemic. The other five are money, time, lack of concern, fear and trust. Let’s take a quick look at each one and see if any of them fit you, and what...

Every once in a while, someone will say, “There must be a lot less cavities today than there were years ago because of improved home care, fluoride, etc., right?” Maybe in general, but there is still way too much decay. Poor diet and home care are the two most common...

Diagnosis is the key to success in any area of medicine, including dentistry. Proper diagnosis leads to success in treatment. In dentistry, there are different exams used at different times of a patient’s “career” at the dental office. I would like to clarify some of...

Last week I discussed some of the content that was presented in a recent U.S. News & World Report which featured seven pages of information on dentistry. This is a continuation of that.  One of the columns in this section of the report entitled, “Guarding Kids’...

A recent U.S. News & World Report featured seven pages of information on dentistry. Although I was surprised that most of the information was accurate, as the media often skews the facts to make a point, there were a few things that I felt needed clarification....

In the last couple of columns I discussed the state of dental insurance in 2022. If you missed them you can read them at www.thetowncommon.com or my blog. The basic gist was that the dental insurance industry has not changed significantly in 40 years.  It’s great if...