Office Policies

New Patients

We warmly welcome new patients of all ages to our practice! At Panorama Orthodontics, we continually strive to create unlimited smiles for our patients and our community, by providing exceptional orthodontic care to both children and adults.

It is not necessary to have a referral to our practice from your family dentist. You may contact us directly for a new patient consultation, and we will communicate closely with your dentist thereafter.

Complimentary Consultation

Our initial consultation is complimentary! However, it is one of the most important appointments throughout your entire orthodontic treatment, and thus, a full hour of our time has been reserved just for you. Please provide us with the courtesy of at least 48 hours notice if you need to cancel or change your appointment, or a failed appointment fee will be levied.

Appointments

We understand that your time is valuable; therefore, we will make every effort to see each patient at his/her scheduled time. In return, we ask that our patients arrive on time for their appointments.

Orthodontic appliances must be adjusted and monitored on a regular basis for treatment to proceed as planned. Although some appointments may be shorter than others, they are all equally important to the success of your treatment. Throughout treatment, the frequency of your appointments will vary, depending on the stage of treatment, type of appliances, and treatment progress.

In order to maximize the use of your time, we schedule your longer appointments in conjunction with other patients longer appointments. This eliminates long waiting times for minor adjustments. To maintain the success of our scheduling system, long appointments are scheduled at less popular times of the day. This way, we are able to accommodate the greatest number of patients during the more popular times (before and after school or work) while still running on time. We ask you to work with us in helping to make this system work.

By agreeing to longer appointments during school or work hours, you will be able to have the vast majority of your orthodontic appointments after school or work and still get in and out of the office on time.

Cancellations

We appreciate that your time is extremely valuable; we hope you understand that our time is also valuable!

If you need to cancel or change your appointment, please provide us with as much notice as possible, preferably at least 24 hours. This allows us to rearrange our patients to accommodate your scheduling change.

We understand that situations arise unexpectedly that may force you to cancel your appointment, but we trust that you will work with us to maintain the integrity of our scheduling system which allows us to provide efficient and effective orthodontic care.

Financial Information

The overall orthodontic fee is dependent on a variety of factors, including the complexity of the orthodontic care and the anticipated duration of treatment. Dr. Chow customizes your orthodontic treatment plan according to your needs; because no two orthodontic treatment plans are identical, costs may differ from patient to patient.

Your orthodontic fee will be determined at the initial consultation. We understand that orthodontics is a substantial investment towards the achievement of good dental and oral health as well as a spectacular smile. We offer flexible payment plans to meet the specific needs of each family, and to make orthodontics affordable to everyone.

If you have dental insurance with orthodontic coverage, please see the Insurance section below for more details.

Payment Policies

In an effort to keep orthodontics affordable while maintaining the highest level of professional care, we have established the following financial policies:

• If full payment is made at the onset of treatment, we will offer a courtesy fee reduction.
• To fit your individual needs, financial arrangements can be made to extend your payments over the duration of treatment without additional cost or interest.
• We accept Visa, MasterCard, debit, cash, and personal cheques
• For your convenience, we process all monthly payments by Visa, MasterCard, and automatic withdrawal from your banking institution

Insurance

Terms of orthodontic insurance coverage vary between insurance companies and individual policies.

We therefore make all financial arrangements directly with the patient/family.

We will be pleased to provide you with the appropriate documentation and forms that you are required to submit to your employer or insurance carrier for the appropriate reimbursement that is provided by your particular plan.

We do not accept assignment of insurance benefits from your insurance company, similar to the vast majority of orthodontists across Canada. Dental insurance policies are a contractual agreement directly between the patient and the insurance company. Therefore, all claims and reimbursements should be managed by the insured party, as recommended by the Canadian Association of Orthodontists. In addition, federal privacy laws do not allow insurance companies to divulge your policy information to third parties.

We recommend that you obtain the exact specifics of your orthodontic coverage within your dental insurance in order to be fully informed of your anticipated coverage and reimbursements. Please use this simple four-question guide when speaking to your insurance representative. We would be happy to help you interpret the responses as necessary.