Is It Root Planing or Full Mouth Debridement?
There are offices that are probing new patients and continuing to follow the old way of thinking that only 5 mm or above need to be root planed. These offices use the code for full mouth debridement, have the patient return for a prophylaxis in 2 weeks, and then come back in 3 months for their continuing care. The problem with this is that the patients being billed out as full mouth debridement probably need to be treatment planned for root planing, whether it is one to four quadrants, 1-3 teeth or 4 or more teeth. They are not entering the correct insurance code with the treatment needed. The code for a full mouth debridement is very specific in its use and I may see only two patients in an entire year that require this code. Misusing the full mouth debridement code is not doing a favor to your patients, hygienist, or practice production. Using this code is usually under-treating a periodontallyinvolved patient, and makes the hygienist work twice as hard at half the cost that it shoul
