practiced by the dental profession. This service is preventive and corrective and includes:
Dental examinations and advice on dental health.
Restoration of lost tooth structure.
Treatment of periodontal conditions.
Surgical procedures.
Replacement of missing teeth essential to personal appearance, the performance of military duty, or the proper mastication of food.
EMERGENCY DENTAL CARE. - This is treatment necessary to relieve pain, control bleeding, and manage acute septic conditions or injuries to the oral-facial structures. Emergency dental care is authorized worldwide for personnel of all categories.
Dental officers must be available at all times to provide emergency care. All dental commands have duty Dental Technicians and a duty dentist either on board or on call that evaluate all patients requesting care after normal duty hours. These evaluations may be accomplished by the dental officer over the telephone; however, the duty dental officer must provide care for all true dental emergencies.
ELECTIVE DENTAL CARE. - This type of care a dentist may authorize but may also defer. Each case should be evaluated individually based on Navy policy. Examples of elective dental are malocclusion, orthodontics, replacing amalgam fillings with gold crowns, etc.
Naval Dental Treatment Facilities (DTFs) will provide care to all eligible beneficiaries subject to the capabilities of the professional staff and the availability of space and facilities.
In those instances when care cannot be rendered to all eligible beneficiaries, the priorities in the following chart must prevail. No distinction as to the sponsoring uniformed service will be made when providing care or deciding priorities. Priority Category The following priority categories should be assigned as appropriate:
1A Members of the uniformed services on active duty.
1B Members of a Reserve Component of the Armed Forces and National Guard personnel.
2 Family member of active duty members of the uniformed services; family members of persons who died while in such a status.
3 Members of the Senior Reserve Officers' Training Corps.
4 Retired members of the uniformed services and their family members (including family members of deceased retired members.)
5 Civilian employees of the Federal Government.
6 All others.
The rendering of emergency dental treatment to any person when such treatment is necessary and demanded by the laws of humanity or the principles of international courtesy will always apply. Receipt of payment (in any form) is prohibited by any dental officer or Dental Technician or from anyone for any dental service in a naval dental activity.
Once you know the patient's eligibility and the type of dental care to provide, you can schedule an appointment. Dental procedures can vary from clinic to clinic, as well as, the type of appointment system and the method of scheduling appointments.
In most cases, appointments are based on fixed, non-variable lengths, such as 45, 60, or 90 minute lengths, or as an incremental time method using 10, 15, or 20 minute units of time. The increment method is often the best use of treatment time because the patient is appointed only for the time needed to complete the procedure.
Whatever type of appointment system is used when you schedule appointments, make sure you do so accurately. Enter the information in the appointment book or computer system first, and then complete the patient's appointment card. If you complete the patient's appointment card with the date and time of the appointment first, and then enter the information in the appointment book or computer-based system (CHCS-Composite Health Care System), you risk having more than one patient scheduled for an appointment time. This can happen easily if you are interrupted and fail to record the information into the appointment book or system.
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