AOH/GOH/Portable Dentistry

Assisted Oral Hygiene/Guided Oral Hygiene

Enjoy our quick video summary of this valuable service, or read about it below the video. This is the best service our practice offers.  Dental health is mostly dependent on what is done regularly at home and assisted oral hygiene/guided oral hygiene makes good homecare accessible to patients who struggle with maintaining their oral health.

Link to Toolkit to develop your own program

Maria Santana Provides Assisted Oral Hygiene
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Ivy using an intraoral scanner to show Jinjing inside a patient's mouth miles away.

OTHER DENTISTS: If you want to start offering this service we are happy to help.  Feel free to utilize the document links in this section if you find them useful. Also check out our courses and videos on our education pages. It is rewarding and a great service for your patients.  

triple bristle brush

Hygiene students, dental assistants and caregivers are hired to serve as oral hygiene leaders in group homes. This is not a replacement for the standard oral care. It supplements and improves standard oral care by providing caregiver education, serving as a regular reminder of the importance of oral care, providing a documentation system for accountability, and sometimes incentivizing caregivers to more actively participate in oral care. Our assisted oral hygiene professionals also provide excellent hands on oral oral care once per week per participant.

This is was piloted with a few residents in both DeSano Place and Creekside Care in Jerome, ID. It was made possible by a HRSA subgrant that ran between 2019-2022.  We saw significant improvement in oral health through this program and we do not want to see our participants decline due to lack the funding. Currently this program is being funded by Dr. Brooke through speaker honorariums she receives.  Thank you to all sponsors and organizations who have had her speak. We are in the application process for another HRSA subgrant,  so wish us luck.

The Idaho Health Care Association Foundation also saw this program to be valuable and has partnered with us to help with raising money. Anyone who wants to help can make tax deductible donations to them and they can help us pay for these services.  It is an expensive program to run because it requires approximately 20 minutes per session of one-on-one time.

If you or your business would like to help, Click HERE .  Any amount helps. We have the oral care part figured out. We are still working on documentation and sustainability. Once we have those things figured out, plan to share the model with dental practices across the nation so this model can help residents everywhere. This has been the best thing our practice has done and has great potential. Please consider helping us financially so we can keep it going.

YSS Oral Hygiene Ability Spectrum: Documentation 

2023 1 Independent  ♠ 2023 2 Motivation Needed  ♣  2023 3 Limited Assistance Needed Cooperative ♥ 2023 4 Limited Assistance Needed Semi-Cooperative  ♦2023 5 Dependent Cooperative ♠ 2023 6 Dependent Semi-Cooperative  ♣ 2023 7 Non Cooperative ♥ 2023 8 Physical Obstacles Adaptive Items 

Infection Control and Jingjing's Caregiver Training Sheet: 

Jingjing's Caregiver Training Dental Terms ♠  Jingjing's Caregiver Instructions for Oral Hygiene ♣ Assisted Oral Hygiene Caregiver-Infection-Control-Checklist ♥ Assisted Oral Hygiene Covid-19 Caregiver Infection Control Check List

 

Basic Portable Services

Link to toolkit to create your own program

Screening Exams

Generally done in person, but may be a combination of in person and teledentistry​. Our exams are mostly screening exams because we do not have the capacity to offer comprehensive care. We recommend for all who can seek comprehensive care that they do. We work frequently with the Family Health Services Advanced Delivery Dental Clinic because they have a room where patients do not even need to leave their wheelchair for treatment. We are happy to work with any dental practice to help provide cleanings, SDF and other basic treatments to help minimize the need to go into the office.

Limited Emergency Exams​

Generally done with teledentistry​​ and referral to local practice, but sometimes Dr. Brooke will come to the facility depending on the situation.

X-rays​

We recommend comprehensive care at a general practice when possible, and for that reason the general practice will probably be the one that takes regular radiographs.  When not possible, we have the capability of taking radiographs to use for the basic services we offer. If we take the radiographs, then they will be taken by the hygienist/dental assistant and read by the dentist offsite.

Professional Cleanings ​

These are done by our hygienists​ with our caregivers/assisted oral hygiene team assisting

Fluoride Varnish: ​

This is a sticky substance that contains fluoride and helps strengthen the teeth. It helps prevent cavities. ​This may be applied by the dentist, hygienist, dental assistant, or with supervision by the caregivers.

Chemical Cavities Control

Sometimes we can manage oral disease with topical chemicals. The most commonly used chemical for this is called Silver Diamine Fluoride. This does well to control the cavity, but leaves a black stain where the cavity is on the tooth. ​This may be applied by the dentist, hygienist, dental assistant, or with supervision by the caregivers.

Fillings​

Most of our of our fillings are SMART restorations utilizing Silver Diamine Fluoride and Glass Ionomer.

Extractions

We are very limited on what we offer with extractions, we often have patients see the oral surgeon or come into a more traditional clinic for extractions.​

Denture Adjustments/Repair

We do minor adjustments and minor repair

We do NOT offer the Following Services:
  • We do not make dentures or partial dentures
  • We do not offer crowns, veneers, bridges, or implants
  • We rarely do traditional fillings
  • We do not offer whitening
  • We do not consider our care comprehensive

 

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A portable dental clinic set up in a colorful garage.

Other Portable/Mobile Practices in Idaho

If you are a dentist and have a portable/mobile program and want to be listed on our site please contact Dr. Brooke and we will list you on this site.

If you are a dentist in Idaho and you want to incorporate this into your practice , we are happy to help you.  Note that to do this you don't have to be exclusively mobile. You can have a mobile hygienist and a traditional brick and mortar practice.  Our team is happy to help your team get started. Below is a document we helped create during the pandemic. If you are a dentist wanting to provide portable dentistry, feel free to utilize this and anything on our website that you find useful. 

Pandemic Infection Control for the Mobile Dental Practice Collaboration Document 

If you are seeking comprehensive care or need care when Dr. Brooke is not at the facility, she also works at Family Health Services Advanced Delivery Dental Clinic which is open Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday 8:30am-7:00pm. (208) 737-6778

We provide portable services only in Jerome, ID for residents of Desano Place, Creekside Care, and Communicare. We are currently at capacity and are not longer contracting with new facilities. We do not go to private residences.

 

Paperwork:  These forms are also available at your facility printed out or through out teledent program when you sign up.

To make things easier, we have consolidated the following forms into one form.

  • Form 1: Our Minimum Necessary HIPPA Form
  • Form 2: Our HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices
  • Form 3: Our Teledentistry Consent
  • Form 4: Our Media Release
  • Form 5: Our Assisted Oral Hygiene Services Agreement

If you chose to sign the form below you will have signed all five consent forms:

Your Special Smiles PLLC Assisted Oral Hygiene Consent Packet

We have also this is two segments with a separated the media release form. Only use these if you are signing the media release form alone or if you would rather not sign the media release.

Media Release Alone

Your Special Smiles PLLC Assisted Oral Hygiene Consent without Media

Other practices starting to offer these services feel free to utilize our formats if they are helpful to you. These are customized to our practice but can serve as an outline.

 

Mandatory Legal Stuff: ♣  Link to 1557 Translation  ♥ Medical Records: Pricing for medical records will not exceed the cost to print the records and employee time spent assembling and printing the records, and shipping of the records.  Pricing will vary based on how many pages need printing and if requested in color. Color printing will cost $1.00/single side and black and white will cost $0.15 per single side.  If shipping is requested shipping will be charged to the patient. If patient would like on a jump drive or CD we will include the cost of the jump drive or disk. We are not able to use patient's memory cards/disks for security purposes. Records can be sent to a secure email with proper permission for only nominal cost