Every dental practice has an abundance of patients who can benefit from dental sleep medicine. Finding and successfully treating them takes commitment and persistence by the entire team, but it’s well worth the effort. Here’s how to get started:
The first thing interested dentists should do is educate themselves and their staff on the practice and particulars of dental sleep medicine today. SomnoMed recommends taking their free, on-demand Foundations in Dental Sleep Medicine courses to get a robust introduction to the field of dental sleep medicine. Other dental organizations also offer courses at their annual meetings including the ADA, AGD, and most state dental societies. It is important that your entire dental team is on boarded and trained in OSA treatment from screening to medical billing to sleep testing.
To ensure your staff and your practice is successful throughout the entire OSA treatment process, be a firm believer in confidently and repeatedly sharing the “why” behind what you do with your team. Don't just declare that you're practice is going to “do” sleep appliances, then expect everyone to be on board. Instead, educate the team on how exciting this field is and how much real impact they can have on their patients lives.
Connect with Physicians
Sleep physicians want to work with dentists who are educated about OSA and who understand the value of teamwork - both inside and outside of their practice. Some physicians struggle to find a local dentist who is qualified in the comprehensive treatment of OSA. To be a successful dental sleep medicine practitioner, you must network and ensure that your skills are known within the medical community. Ultimately—for the best medical interests of patients—the dental sleep medicine model relies on a collaborative, referral-based relationship between a sleep physician and a dentist.
Indicative of the necessary collaboration between qualified dentists and physicians, the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine (AADSM) and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) released the first official joint guideline on oral appliance in July 2015. The six evidence-based recommendations in the guideline clarify the individual roles of the dentist and sleep physician to ensure an effective working relationship. This relationship involves collaboration from the start, so that patients understand the process for diagnosis, treatment options, and the roles of their care providers. By underscoring the vital importance of this physician-dentist team, the AADSM-AASM guideline establishes oral appliance therapy as a patient-focused solution that necessitates a multidisciplinary approach to successfully treat the growing OSA epidemic.
Screen Your Patients
Within your dental practice, dental teams can begin to integrate dental sleep therapies by starting sleep-focused conversations with patients. It is amazing that adding the question Do you, or anyone in your family, snore? to the standard medical questionnaire can help uncover a huge population in need of care. Asking a simple question can open the door to this rapidly growing field.
Screening your dental patients for sleep apnea on a consistent basis is the primary starting point, but it’s a task that you and your entire office have to be on the same page about, especially when it comes to building a base of potential patients. From SomnoMed's experience, we've seen the best results from practices who have trained their staff, gained personal experience by having a device of their own and by screening each patient that comes into their practice.
Access SomnoMed's informative ebook about Growing Your Dental Sleep Medicine Practice here.