Frequently asked questions.

Safety is, above all, our number one priority. Modern ambulatory sedation and anesthesia care has never been safer if provided by a board certified dentist anesthesiologist, in a state credentialed facility, for healthy patients. Prior to every case, your anesthesiologist will perform a thorough medical evaluation to determine if your child is a good candidate for this procedure, including consulting with their pediatrician and any specialists if deemed necessary.  We will also request that your child have a brief check-up with their physician prior to this visit, so we can establish an up-to-date picture of their overall health. You can be assured that no stone will be left unturned to ensure your child is an ideal candidate for this care, thus adding an additional layer of safety. 

To ensure patient safety, office-based sedation and anesthetic services are reserved for healthy individuals.  During the scheduling process, the anesthesia team will evaluate the patient’s overall medical condition to determine if they are a candidate for care within an office setting.  If so, we will request some additional items of information through our Portal System and will schedule an appointment for this procedure.  However, should we determine that your child is not an ideal candidate for office-based care, we appreciate everyone’s understanding, and will defer treatment to a hospital setting where anesthetic care can be conducted in an optimal environment recognizing your child’s specific needs.

We expect that parents will be very nervous about this procedure and want to help alleviate this anxiety by making you feel more comfortable. Our anesthesiologists will personally contact you in the days leading up to the procedure to review every step of the procedure, discuss pre-operative eating & drinking instructions, and to answer any questions that you may have. Furthermore, you will always have direct access to the anesthesiologist—not a nurse, assistant, or receptionist. This ensures that nothing is lost in translation and everyone is on the same page. At any point during the process leading up to or following the procedure you have a question or concern, we want to hear from you.  Our goal is to have parents that are fully educated on the pending procedure, as this has been shown to help alleviate the parental stresses commonly associated with this care.

And finally, NEDA provides a detailed informational overview packet which describes every step of the process. For parents interested in understanding all the procedural details, we highly recommend that they review this comprehensive overview.

Not every anesthesia provider offers the same level of quality, training, expertise, or personalized care. NEDA is considered one of the nation’s premier providers of mobile office-based sedation and anesthesia care.  Our training and experience for this specific type of care far surpasses any other possible anesthesia provider, including CRNAs and medical anesthesiologists.  If you’re looking for exceptional, individualized care where the actual anesthesiologist (not a nurse, tech, or assistant) manages each and every step of the anesthetic process, NEDA is your only option.  With an impeccable track record, it is our primary focus to ensure that your experience is nothing less than perfect, from start to finish.

A dentist anesthesiologist is an individual who first completes four years of dental school training, followed by the successful completion of an accredited post-doctoral anesthesiology residency-training program.  Post-doctoral anesthesiology programs are 3-years in duration, in accordance with the Commission on Dental Accreditation’s Standards for Dental Anesthesiology Residency Programs, and meet the eligibility requirements for examination by the American Dental Board of Anesthesiology.  This training includes providing hospital-based anesthesia care along side physician anesthesiologists.  Along with the traditional hospital training, dentist anesthesiologists receive focused training in providing anesthesia services exclusively for dental patients, which is very different than other surgical procedures.  This unique training is what differentiates a dentist anesthesiologist from a physician anesthesiologist.  Dentist anesthesiologists complete thousands of anesthetics exclusively for dental procedures, while physician anesthesiologists and CRNAs may only complete a few during their training.

A mobile dentist anesthesiologist also specializes in working in the dental office and will bring all the necessary equipment to provide anesthesia safely in your dentist’s private office. Monitoring equipment mirror those used within a hospital’s operating room.  The dentist anesthesiologist is responsible for providing every aspect of care for your child to ensure the safest and most effective treatment possible; never relying on a staff member or nurse, with less training and experience, to fulfill any aspect of care. State certified dentist anesthesiologists are also fully equipped and trained to handle all potential emergencies, and are certified in Basic Life Support (BLS), Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS), and Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS).

Lastly, dentist anesthesiologists are the only anesthesia providers to be fully certified by the state board which verifies that specific criteria have been met.  Without any state oversight, physician anesthesiologists and CRNAs are not required to obtain any such certification and therefore may or may not meet certain safety requirements.  These are some of the important factors which led the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry to designate the Dentist Anesthesiologist as the ideal anesthesia provider for the delivery of sedation and anesthesia for the pediatric dental patient.

Sedation and anesthetic medications have occasional side effects including nausea, dizziness, sleepiness, and loss of normal body coordination. Some patients may experience a sore or itchy throat, bloody nose, or minor aches. Typically these effects dissipate within a few hours following the procedure. To help minimize post-operative side effects, it is important to drink plenty of fluids to stay well hydrated, and always take pain medications(s) as directed by your dentist or anesthesiologist. 

In extremely rare instances, patients can experience a paradoxical or exaggerated effect during awakening from these procedures.  With this, children can wake up hysterical, crying, disoriented, extremely defiant, and/or inconsolable.  This can be scary for parents, but is self-limiting, normally lasting about 45-minutes.  It is also important to remember that these children have no control over their emotions and do not form a long-lasting memory of this period.  In such instances, we recommend that parents avoid talking negatively about this occurrence in front of the child – this way they will avoid developing a fear of the dental office.

Complete recovery from sedation and anesthesia for a child takes several hours.  Immediately following treatment, they will remain in the office until awake enough to be safely transported home; however, they may still feel dizzy and disoriented for several hours.  DO NOT plan on any physical activities for at least 6-hours.  Many children wake-up from these procedures crying, confused, upset, and with blurry or double vision.  These effects may frustrate your child and cause uncharacteristically defiant behavior, but this will subside as the medications wear off.  Once home, it is normal for your child to take a nap and wake-up feeling refreshed without any memory of the surgical procedure and recovery periods.  As always, positive discussions regarding the procedure will help to build your child’s confidence, and should make subsequent visits to the dental office less stressful for everyone.