Episode 16 - All Dental Services Under One Roof

Dr. Michelle discusses the advantages of a locally owned comprehensive dental practice.

https://jacksonvillebeachdentist.com/

Transcript

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Kevin (00:06):
Five minutes now after 11 o'clock. We're live from St. Augustine. Hope you're having a good morning so far. A little chilly out there, 54 degrees, some clouds hanging around. We expect those to clear up though, and we should get into the low sixties and lots of blue sky and sunshine after. What was a pretty dreary weekend? Dr. Michelle DeFelice Hucke

Dr. Michelle (00:25):
Yes, it was.

Kevin (00:27):
It was kind of rainy, especially yesterday. Yesterday was yucky.

Dr. Michelle (00:30):
Yes. I was in Stewart, Florida watching a sailing regatta, which obviously was a struggle in that weather.

Kevin (00:38):
Did it actually happen?

Dr. Michelle (00:40):
They did one race instead of five after sitting around all day.

Kevin (00:43):
That's one more race than they did at Daytona yesterday.

Dr. Michelle (00:46):
Yes, so I hear

Kevin (00:47):
Yeah. Dr. Michelle is with us from Jax Beaches Family Dentistry, Jax Beaches Family Dentistry. Lemme give you a phone number. We'll give it to you a couple more times too, where you can punch it into your cell phone. (904) 247-0111. So when you have that dental emergency, your filling falls off, cap falls off usually the worst time possible. Right?

Dr. Michelle (01:07):
Is there a good time for that?

Kevin (01:09):
Yeah, I know, but usually it's a bad thing. 9 0 4 2 4 7 0 1 1 1. Go to the website, jacksonvillebeachdentist.com. It's a great resource of good information there. Today I wanted to talk with Dr. Michelle about you have options obviously when you go to dental offices, but it is important if you can go to a locally owned office that has all services under one roof.

Dr. Michelle (01:32):
Yeah, it's really helpful. It's something that was created in my office, partly because I was raised that way. So my dad is a dentist. The first 12 years of my career I was in Geneva, New York, which is in the Finger Lakes for anyone that knows where that is. And I was in a building that my dad and the other dentists in my small town created. Almost all the dentists in the town were all in one building, so three or four different general dentists, the oral surgeon, the root canal specialist. We were all in a plaza style building. And the lovely thing about that is when someone would come to me and they needed to see the oral surgeon, I could just walk them next door. And so when I came to Florida, I quickly realized that I was missing that because people like the convenience of it. They also like having me who they have a relationship with, hand me off to somebody that I know and trust. And better than that, they also want it to be convenient because our lives between 1990 and now have only gotten busier and busier and busier. So convenience wise, they also to be handed off to someone that's in the same building I'm in.

Kevin (02:56):
Because a lot of times if you go to some other practice, maybe some corporate chain or something may be done in that office, teeth cleaning, basic things. But if you need something more sophisticated like a crown or something like that, you may either have to come back or go somewhere else.

Dr. Michelle (03:11):
Yeah. We also do a lot of same day dentistry. So the nice thing about our office is that if you need a crown done, we have scanning capabilities in a milling center right in our office. This is really helpful for people that are new to town that might be partway through. Dental treatment is also helpful for people that are in our communities temporarily and they break a tooth or they're here and they have an accident. We've had multiple people relatively recently that fall on bicycles while they're here and they've rented bicycles and they're bicycling around Jacksonville Beach and they fall. We're able to save their vacations, save their, when they're here for a couple of months to get away from the northern weather. It's scary. You have something tragic happen to your mouth and you're away from your dentist who and trust up north and you don't really know where to turn. So we're able to do all services under one roof like root canals and then things like milled crown same day, which is really helpful for people that are here temporarily.

Kevin (04:26):
Yeah. Learn more too about all the different things, all the different services that are offered by going to jacksonville beach dentist.com. That's jacksonville beach dentist.com and for that inevitable dental emergency, punch this number into your cell phone. Two four seven zero one one one. That number again? 9 0 4 2 4 7 0 1 1 1. Dr. Michelle, when you talk with your patients and you're explaining, Hey, we're going to get this done for you today or we're going to get this done, I would imagine from time to time they express surprise that they're not going to have to come back.

Dr. Michelle (05:01):
Yeah, they are usually surprised when we can see them the same day. Part of the reason we're able to do that is we have multiple providers in one building, so we have a lot more of an ability to be able to be flexible with our schedule. And then I have a surgeon that comes to my office a couple of times a month, so we're also able to accommodate complicated surgery, which not everyone is comfortable with. The lovely thing about a group office is that all of us that work together, well, first of all, we've worked together for a long time and we also do the aspects of dentistry that we love. We're not pigeonholed into doing stuff that we're not comfortable with. We're also not pigeonholed into doing the parts of dentistry that doesn't thrill us to do, which is great.

Kevin (05:55):
Everybody gets to focus on what they would like to focus on, what they like to do, which the patient appreciates that as well. Anyway, all services or so many services under one roof, it really does matter. It makes for the patient experience to be a good one. Absolutely. Right. Encourage you to consider becoming part of the Jack Beach Family Dentistry family. I'm a patient, they kind of groan when I walk in, but I enjoy Emel, who's my hygienist? Oh, he loves a shout out. Yes. Shout out to him. And he does a tremendous job and puts up with me and gently gives me advice on how I can tweak my flossing without making me feel bad. Dr. Michelle probably would just say floss better, but how many times are we supposed to floss a day? Once a day at least. Just once. Yeah. Yeah. Good. If you have any questions, go to the website, jacksonville beach dentist.com. And that phone number again, (904) 247-0111. On

Dr. Michelle (07:10):
We, I feel for inspiration doesn't happen every day. I

Kevin (14:48):
Medicare eligible. That's Madonna here on 1 0 3 9 WSOS. I'm of a certain generation where, okay, it still gives me pause to think of Madonna being Medicare eligible, but Okay. She looks good though.

Dr. Michelle (15:02):
She does.

Kevin (15:03):
Yeah. I mean, interesting. She's had a lot of work done, so there's a lot of people that, I mean a lot of work like unrecognizable sometimes, but whatever. It works

Dr. Michelle (15:12):
For her. Whatever makes you happy.

Kevin (15:14):
And she's still out there performing too, which is good, right? Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Michelle, she's a youngster. Of course. She's out there performing in the dental world. Of all the things you get to do for patients, what's the one thing that brings you the most personal satisfaction?

Dr. Michelle (15:29):
I love focusing on people's health, so I love seeing them get their gums healthy and

Kevin (15:35):
Yeah, health. You enjoy the, and there's a direct link and Dr. Michelle's always known this, but it's funny, the science and the mass media is kind of caught up to something that you were telling me 10, 12 years ago, which was, Hey, your mouth is a window into your overall health.

Dr. Michelle (15:54):
It is, and all diseases are inflammatory diseases, so clearing up your gums and getting really healthy gums and getting rid of that inflammation helps you with any other inflammatory disease you're trying to fight. Your body only has so many resources, so I just love if somebody's got diabetes for example, and they're having trouble controlling their sugar, you really can't control your diabetes effectively. If you haven't had your teeth cleaned in a long time and you have gum issues, and if you have gum issues or a tendency toward them and you have uncontrolled or difficult to control A1C and sugar levels, then you're always going to be fighting the gum disease too, so they go hand in hand. Yeah.

Kevin (16:44):
Same goes for plaque, right? We always, ever since we were kids, we've been told the evils of plaque and the importance of brushing and flossing and rinsing and all that, but that same plaque is the plaque that you hear from your cardiologist that could be impacting your heart health.

Dr. Michelle (16:56):
It is. It is. We finally have discovered that we were only created with one circulatory system, and when you have bleeding gums, that's an open wound and there's bacteria in your mouth and that bacteria can go wherever it pleases.

Kevin (17:13):
Yeah. So indeed, if you care about these sorts of things, overall health, that's a key focus. At Jacks Beach's Family Dentistry, I'm a patient, and so when I go, they always check my blood pressure, my pulse, ask how I'm doing, see if I've changed any meds since the last time I had my teeth cleaned. Because as we learned from that song back in elementary school, right, the hip bones connected to the leg bone. Yeah.

Dr. Michelle (17:37):
For a long time there was, even as a dentist, we felt like, oh, we're working in the mouth, which is separate from everything else, but the mouth is connected to the airway and connected to the gut, and then we only have one circulatory system too. So any bacteria, anything that's in the mouth is directly connected to the heart and the brain and your hip surgery that's coming up, all those things,

Kevin (18:08):
All that matters.

Dr. Michelle (18:09):
It does matter, and we can finally confidently say it because the research is so good. So that is helpful too. We're not just preaching to the choir. It's really easy to Google and look up.

Kevin (18:22):
If you just look up, go on Google and just type in mouth health as an indicator of overall health

Dr. Michelle (18:28):
Or mouth health. I was talking about the whole hip replacement, knee replacement thing this morning with a different group, and you can Google that too. The percentage of failed surgeries in relation to the person's periodontal health status. So super important if you're listening and you have any surgeries coming up.

Kevin (18:51):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, if you have any questions at all, maybe you are searching for a new dental home. Maybe you're one of the 1000 or so folks who are moving here to this part of Northeast Florida every month and you move here. Welcome. Yeah, welcome by the way. And when you arrive here, it may not be the very first thing you do, but probably in the top 10 things of things that you need to do, you need to find a dental home.

Dr. Michelle (19:13):
It's the top 10 along with hairstylist, most stressful thing,

Kevin (19:17):
Hairstylist to switch. Anyway, they are seeing new patients, right? We are at Jack Beaches Family Dentistry. Absolutely. It starts with that telephone call that you can make zero two four seven zero one one one. It's even easier though, to have that initial consultation schedule, that first appointment online. You can do that a couple of different ways, right? Go to the website,

Dr. Michelle (19:40):
Absolutely. Jacksonvillebeachdentist.com

Kevin (19:43):
You can also connect with Jack Beach Family Dentistry. They're very involved on social media. There's lots of good content there from Dr. Michelle and her team. We encourage you to find them. Of course. Just search Jax Beach Family Dentistry on Facebook and Instagram,

Dr. Michelle (19:56):
On the Facebook

Kevin (19:57):
On the Facebook. Dr. Michelle, thank you very much for coming by. We appreciate

Dr. Michelle (20:01):
Thank you.