Your First Consultation

Our office is open to serve you Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. We will make every effort to schedule your appointments promptly and conveniently.

IF YOU ARE IN PAIN: We will make every effort to see you within 24 hours, often on the same day, during normal business hours. If you are a patient of record and experiencing a dental emergency on a weekend or after office hours, please call Dr. Tohme at 419-882-1807. If you are not a patient of record and are experiencing dental pain on a weekend or after office hours, please call your general dentist or the hospital of your choice.

Thank you for choosing Toledo Periodontics for your dental care needs. We are committed to providing you excellent care and treatment. Please understand that your financial responsibility is part of your treatment. We are providing this to you to give you an idea or what you can expect to see during the billing process.

Payment Options:

• We accept cash, check or money order.
• We accept MasterCard, Visa, American Express and Discover.
• We offer monthly payments through an outside lender. These can include an interest free 6 month option or extended payment plans up to 60 months. You can have us apply on your behalf, visit the following websites or call toll free for the following information.
• Care Credit:Visit 
• www.carecredit.com or phone 800-365-8295. 

Regarding Insurance:

• Following your initial visit to our office and the opportunity to discuss your specific treatment and coverage with your insurance company, we most often will accept assignment of benefits.
• Any deductibles and co-payments are to be paid at the time of service.
• If there is a balance on your account after insurance payment has been received, it will be due and payable within 30 days.
• If we overestimated your co-payment for services, we will reimburse this to you in 30 days.
• Your insurance policy is a contract between you and your insurance company. We are not a party to that contract.

Insurance Policy

What you can expect:

• We will bill your insurance provider first.
• Please verify your insurance information. We make every effort to confirm your insurance coverage when appointments are scheduled. However, your insurance coverage may have changed and our records need to be updated. If you have lost your coverage since your initial visit please call us at 419-882-1807 or toll free at 800-321-1036. If you have secondary insurance, we will bill your secondary insurance immediately after we receive payment from your primary insurance.
• We will bill you next. Although we cannot guarantee how soon we will hear from your insurance provider or how much of the charge they will cover, you should expect a billing statement from us approximately 30 to 60 days from now. The billing statement will show:
• What services were provided.
• The charges for your service.
• Which services were covered by your insurance.
• How much you owe.
• When your payment is due.

Usual and Customary Rates:

Our practice is committed to providing the best treatment for our patients and we charge what is usual and customary for our area. You are responsible for payment regardless of any insurance company’s arbitrary determination of usual and customary rates.

Interest:

We reserve the right to charge interest in the amount of 1.75% as provided by state law 60 days after the balance becomes past due.

Returned checks:

There will be a $35.00 returned check fee assessed to your account. Please contact

our office immediately for resolution.

During the past decade, dental benefit plans have become an integral part of health care planning for many families. Dental benefit plans are made available to employees and their family members through companies, unions and associations, and vary considerably from one plan to the next.

The range of benefits depends solely on what the plan purchaser wishes to offer employees or members. Plan coverage may range from 100% to no coverage at all for a given procedure, although most plans fall within the 50-80% range. Some plans exclude certain procedures, while others provide full range of benefits.

Some plans base the benefit amount on a chart or schedule of fees arbitrarily developed by the third party payers. Therefore, you may receive a lower amount of reimbursement than your plan leads you to believe. For example, if your plan states that it will pay 80% of the cost of dental treatment, it may actually mean 80% of the fee as determined by the insurance company, not the fee charged.

In order to avoid any confusion or misunderstanding, we would like to explain both the principles of our practice and the type of service and care we provide to our patients:

Our fees are based on the overhead involved in our practice, the treatment plan selected, and the time it takes us to provide you with the necessary dental care. We do not compromise our recommended treatment in order to accommodate a dental plan’s maximum benefits which may be less than optimal. This would be unfair to you. However, we will certainly help you prioritize treatment and determine what problems should be solved first, to help you maximize your insurance benefits. We are also more than happy to discuss a treatment plan’s advantages and disadvantages with you. In this way you, not the third party payer, are involved in the decision making process. Again, the type of treatment you receive from us is based on your needs and our professional judgment, not whether you are covered by a dental benefits plan.

As a help to you, my staff will be happy to submit your dental claim for you. If you instruct the insurance company to send its reimbursement directly to our office, you will receive credit for this amount. If you have already made payments toward your treatment, and have a balance which is less than the amount paid by the insurance company, you will immediately be refunded the difference.

If your dental benefits plan requires a “predetermination” or “prior authorization” we will submit a treatment plan for review by the third party payer. However, please remember that the financial obligation for dental treatment is between you and this office. The third party payer is responsible to you, not our office.

Toledo Periodontics follows and enforces HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) guidelines as established by federal law in 1996.

HIPAA helps protect the privacy of patient information. As health care professionals, it is our responsibility to provide confidentiality of patient information. In short, your protected health information (PHI) can only be shared in accordance with your specifications or as outlined by federal law for insurance purposes.

Please view our “Online Forms” tab to print a HIPAA form. Complete the form (in ink pen please) and bring it with you to your first appointment.

Download the HIPAA forms for Toledo Periodontics at this link.

For more information, please visit the Department of Health and Human Services at the following link:

http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/index.html

Infection Control and Your Safety

What Our Sterilization and Disinfection Practices Mean To You?

The Toledo Periodontics facility was designed to provide the highest quality of sterilization and disinfection practices in order to ensure your safety during treatment procedures. We strictly adhere to and strive to surpass the most recent guidelines mandated by The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), The Ohio State Dental Board (OSDB), the Organization for Safety and Asepsis Procedures (OSAP). Our staff is fully trained in the latest infection control protocols and our training is updated annually (or more frequently as mandated).

Some our infection control procedures include:

• Autoclave (steam under pressure) sterilization of all surgical and dental hygiene instruments.
• Use of internal and external chemical monitors on all sterilized instruments to assure autoclave (sterilizer) processing.
• Weekly testing of sterilization equipment in accordance with the Ohio State Dental Board to assure proper function of sterilization equipment.
• Sterilization area designed to clearly separate sterile/clean area from contaminated area.
• Disinfectants or barrier (plastic) wraps used to cover all surfaces that cannot be sterilized, such as the treatment chair, door handles, light switches, etc. in accordance with CDC and OSDB guidelines.
• Handwashing and gloving procedures in accordance with the CDC and OSDB guidelines for hand hygiene. This is the single most important procedure for the prevention of cross-contamination.
• All employees must wear gloves whenever placing their fingers into the mouth of a patient or when handling blood/saliva contaminated items, in accordance with Ohio Revised Colde Chapter 4715.
• Disposable surgical gowns worn during surgical procedures. Employee uniforms are laundered on site in accordance with current infection control guidelines.
• A complete and thorough personal, medical and dental history is performed on each patient prior to treatment to protect all employees and other patients.
• All employees must show evidence of immunity or immunization against the Hepatitis B virus in accordance with Ohio Revised Code Chapter 4715.
• All patients are offered a pre-procedural mouthrinse, which has been shown to reduce the amount of airborne microorganisms by 98% (Cottone, et al, 1996).
• Masks and protective eyewear are worn by dentists and dental health care workers, in accordance with the Ohio Revised Code Chapter 4715-20- 01. Additionally, protective eyewear is offered to patients to reduce the chance of eye injury.
• The water source for our dental units is distilled water which removes any chance for contamination that is found in regular tap water.

Please visit the following links for more information:

http://dental.ohio.gov/icmanual.pdf

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/pdf/guidelines/Disinfection_Nov_2008.pdf

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5217a1.htm

http://www.osap.org/