May 7, 2025 • 12 mins
Limited-Time Offer (Only for the First 50 Practices): Get 2 FREE PerioVive applications (treats up to 12 patients – $135 value) when you enroll in the Current Concepts in Veterinary Periodontal Disease Management course. https://ivdi.org/perio
Offer ends Sunday, May 11, or when all 50 spots are claimed. Available exclusively to podcast listeners and email subscribers!
Access more resources and CE courses for veterinary dentistry - https://veterinarydentistry.net/
Host: Dr. Brett Beckman, DVM, FAVD, DAVDC, DAAPM
Welcome to The Vet Dental Show – the weekly podcast for veterinarians, technicians, and dental teams committed to excellence in veterinary dentistry. In this episode, Dr. Brett Beckman reveals a highly efficient, no-fluff approach to dental charting that helps you save time, improve accuracy, and reduce patient anesthetic time—taken directly from the new Current Concepts in Veterinary Periodontal Disease Management course.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
Time-saving abbreviations for periodontal procedures (RPC, SC, HA, BG, etc.) When to chart bleeding pockets—and when not to waste time How to use radiographs to pre-mark extractions before even probing.css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Vet Dental Show.
(00:01):
I'm Brett Beckman.
We've got a new episode foryou this week, and we're gonna
be looking at dental charting.
This is a very frustrating aspectof our veterinary dental service in
general practice, and we're gonna tellyou how to make this so much easier.
In a short period of time, and thissegment comes from our brand new
(00:23):
periodontal course that is availableas of right now, today, and up until
Sunday, we've got 50 practices that we'llreceive, a special offer that I'll tell
you about at the end of this program.
So sit back and enjoy and take notesbecause there's a lot of information here.
(00:44):
In this dental charting segment fromthe brand new periodontal course,
current concepts in periodontaldisease in veterinary medicine.
I'm gonna go over the main thingsthat you need to remember just
for your periodontal cases.
And there's a lot of a lot of thingsthat I want to go over as far as charting
(01:07):
goes and what you do specifically andwhat can save you time charting and
what's necessary and what's unnecessary.
So to start off.
As we've discussed these two procedures,so what I would suggest is that you
have some type of a combination ofthese two bundles with each of these
(01:32):
two components to it as part of yourservice sheet, as we've mentioned.
And so we can use these as aabbreviation for every time we do.
Root planning and apply Perio vi.
(01:52):
So root planning, close sub clin,sub gingival securage is abbreviated
with RPC and SC slash sc very easily.
And then hyaluronic acid you canabbreviate ha, so that is your
designation for the treatment portionof a. Periodontal pocket where you have
(02:18):
bleeding and you've done the R-P-C-S-C.
Same thing with the bonegraft and root planning.
Open RPO slash BG and then HA touse as the abbreviation in your
dental chart each time you do these
(02:39):
and then this X here.
This is what we utilize.
First from the standpoint oflooking at what we're going to do
from an extraction standpoint thatwe know just based on the x-rays.
So just to give you an idea of howI approach this, you don't have to
(03:01):
approach it this way, but this is areally efficient way of approaching
your whole process of doing yourevaluation on your patients.
Once the technician has taken thex-rays, and in my case, my technicians
know how to interpret x-rays, sothey will actually mark on the chart
the the periodontal disease index,which we'll talk about in a second.
(03:25):
So they're gonna, they're gonna markon the chart, the changes that court
that com coincide with the x-rays, andthen I've got the chart that they've
already looked at, and then I canlook at those x-rays while they're
cleaning and continuing their probingand doing their more detailed charting
as opposed to the x-rays themselves.
(03:46):
So I've got a, I've got that chartand I'm looking at the x-rays.
I haven't even looked in the patient inthe patient's mouth under anesthesia.
I'm.
Called into the room.
I grabbed the chart.
Go to the x-ray screen and start toread those x-rays and do so in the
exact same order, from the right maxillato the left maxilla, and then from
(04:08):
the left maxilla left mand order tothe right mandible in that template.
Every time, same exact way.
And so we can do this very quickly.
Go through, look at those x-rays.
Click double click onan x-ray, enlarge it.
See what the defect is or not.
And if it's an extraction, I'm justgonna place an X on that and I'm gonna
(04:30):
go through that whole mouth and putXs on every tooth I'm gonna extract.
And then that portion of theprocedure I'm done with my evaluation.
I will go back obviously andlook at the pathology after.
The technicians have charted that,and then while I'm doing that,
(04:51):
they're calling the owner and givingthem the majority of the estimate.
And so when we're done withthat short process, we're
ready to start the procedure.
So those Xs are over.
The majority of what we're gonna do froma cost standpoint and from a procedure
standpoint in almost every patientthat we see, because as you guys know.
(05:12):
With periodontal disease, the mainthing that we're doing to treat
the patient that has a significantimpact is surgical extractions.
So knowing that those are the mostexpensive and those are gonna be the
most time consuming, consequentlythey're gonna constitute the most,
the biggest portion of that estimate.
We can very confidently give.
(05:34):
The client that estimate.
And then if we need to add somethinglater we let them know that we're
finishing up the fine tuning.
And once the doctor starts, wemay find other things as we get
in surgically, we'll call youif there's any changes on that.
Very effective way of doing that.
Very quick way of getting themajority of the charting done with
(05:54):
the extractions that you're gonnado just by using that x on the
treatment side of your dental chart.
And then we talked about furcation.
So you're gonna find furcation.
They're not super common,but you're gonna find them.
They're not as common asperiodontal pockets by any means,
but you're gonna find them.
So you grade those one throughthree, as we've already discussed.
And then one other thing that we haven'ttalked about is gingivitis index.
(06:18):
So GI one is mild, two is moderate,three is significant gingivitis.
So again, very subjective.
But you can use that to put thosenotations in the chart so that when next
time this patient comes in, if we're notextracting those teeth, we can evaluate
that based on what treatment we've donebased on the interval we've given for that
(06:42):
individual patient, whether it be threemonths, a year, or whatever that might be.
And see how much of a return tothose previous parameters we have,
or how much improvement we have inthat amount of gingivitis that we
are, that we're marking on the chart.
So that becomes important withour periodontal reevaluations.
(07:04):
So we wanna make sure that we, we markthose when we're doing our charting.
And then with the, the fact thatwe are extracting teeth, I can't
stress this enough that there is nojustification whatsoever to clean
(07:26):
teeth that we're going to extract.
It's a total waste of time to do that.
We're trying to get this patientup and out of anesthesia quickly.
So we wanna make sure that we doeverything as efficiently as possible,
and taking the time to clean thoseteeth that are going to be extracted
(07:47):
is absolutely ridiculous in my view.
So I would strongly advise thatyou consider not doing that.
You will have some teeth.
That are going to have a largeamount of calculus that rides
up above the marginal gum line.
That if you take a, an extraction forcepand you crack that off it, that's gonna
(08:09):
help you for sure with your extractions.
But that's very quick.
We're not actually getting downand cleaning when we get done
with those surgical extractions.
Everything's clean.
We've got a new bone level.
That, that we've contouredafter those extractions, so we
don't need to remove that one.
(08:30):
One thing that, that I've had that isan argument but it's not a justifiable
argument, is that if we leave thecalculus on there, we're not, we're
gonna alter our ability to interpretthe radiographs, and that's absolutely
not the case with one exception.
And I've had this a couple timesin practice and they've been in
(08:55):
brachycephalic dogs where there's somuch palatal calculus that when you
take the radiograph with that sensorintraorally, you will superimpose
that calculus over the root structure.
But that's palatal because we'reshooting vestibular to palatal.
(09:19):
If we're shooting co vestibular Paland we have coronal calculus, that
coronal calculus is not going to besuperimposed over the tooth roots.
So again, those would be the onlytimes, and I've only seen that a
couple of times, that you wanna removethe calculus before you take x-rays.
(09:42):
All right, so that'swe'll go on from there.
That's a little pet peeve of minethat I think is super important
that I want everyone to understand.
And then our charting abbreviationsthe periodontal pocket depth is.
Indicated by a p and then a numberwhatever the depth of that pocket is.
(10:04):
And we're not measuring normal pockets.
We're not trying to take the time toplace a designation on every tooth.
The only pockets that we need to puton that dental chart are the ones
that are bleeding when we probe.
And we might have somedramatic differences between
(10:24):
the depth of that probing.
For an individual tooth.
So you can certainly justify puttingdifferent numbers maybe two different
numbers for a tooth that indicatethe periodontal depth of that pocket.
But at the same time, we're notprobing teeth that we're extracting.
(10:44):
There's no reason to do that.
The designation that we'regonna use for extraction.
That justifies the extraction.
Is that periodontal diseaseindex or PD one through four?
If we've got a two through a four,those are indications for extraction.
We don't need any moreinformation on that tooth.
(11:08):
And the reason is we're not gonna comeback in three months or four months
or a year and measure pocket depth.
We don't care what the pocket is.
We know we're gonna extractit based on the bone loss.
So use that and keep in mind theseconcepts so that you can make that process
much less time consuming and think aboutit from that common sense standpoint and
(11:33):
apply those principles in the practice.
I hope you enjoyed that segment.
That is, again, just a part of theperio course that's available now,
starting today Wednesday in May.
This is Sunday, May 4th.
I'm recording this.
So fifth, sixth, Sunday, may Wednesday,May 7th, and this offer goes until
(11:55):
Sunday if it's still available.
We are allowing 50 veterinarypractices to purchase this course.
And with that at a huge discount, weare offering free two applications
of Perio vi, which will treat aboutsix pockets or six patients each.
(12:17):
So 12 patients.
That normally would be $135.
It is free for purchasing this course at ahuge discount, so take advantage of this.
This is only available for ourpodcast listeners and our email
subscribers, so hopefully you'll seethe value and take advantage of it
(12:38):
and enjoy the patient results thatyou'll get as a result of using it.
We'll see you next week.
Welcome to the Vet Dental Show.
(00:01):
I'm Brett Beckman.
We've got a new episode foryou this week, and we're gonna
be looking at dental charting.
This is a very frustrating aspectof our veterinary dental service in
general practice, and we're gonna tellyou how to make this so much easier.
In a short period of time, and thissegment comes from our brand new
(00:23):
periodontal course that is availableas of right now, today, and up until
Sunday, we've got 50 practices that we'llreceive, a special offer that I'll tell
you about at the end of this program.
So sit back and enjoy and take notesbecause there's a lot of information here.
(00:44):
In this dental charting segment fromthe brand new periodontal course,
current concepts in periodontaldisease in veterinary medicine.
I'm gonna go over the main thingsthat you need to remember just
for your periodontal cases.
And there's a lot of a lot of thingsthat I want to go over as far as charting
(01:07):
goes and what you do specifically andwhat can save you time charting and
what's necessary and what's unnecessary.
So to start off.
As we've discussed these two procedures,so what I would suggest is that you
have some type of a combination ofthese two bundles with each of these
(01:32):
two components to it as part of yourservice sheet, as we've mentioned.
And so we can use these as aabbreviation for every time we do.
Root planning and apply Perio vi.
(01:52):
So root planning, close sub clin,sub gingival securage is abbreviated
with RPC and SC slash sc very easily.
And then hyaluronic acid you canabbreviate ha, so that is your
designation for the treatment portionof a. Periodontal pocket where you have
(02:18):
bleeding and you've done the R-P-C-S-C.
Same thing with the bonegraft and root planning.
Open RPO slash BG and then HA touse as the abbreviation in your
dental chart each time you do these
(02:39):
and then this X here.
This is what we utilize.
First from the standpoint oflooking at what we're going to do
from an extraction standpoint thatwe know just based on the x-rays.
So just to give you an idea of howI approach this, you don't have to
(03:01):
approach it this way, but this is areally efficient way of approaching
your whole process of doing yourevaluation on your patients.
Once the technician has taken thex-rays, and in my case, my technicians
know how to interpret x-rays, sothey will actually mark on the chart
the the periodontal disease index,which we'll talk about in a second.
(03:25):
So they're gonna, they're gonna markon the chart, the changes that court
that com coincide with the x-rays, andthen I've got the chart that they've
already looked at, and then I canlook at those x-rays while they're
cleaning and continuing their probingand doing their more detailed charting
as opposed to the x-rays themselves.
(03:46):
So I've got a, I've got that chartand I'm looking at the x-rays.
I haven't even looked in the patient inthe patient's mouth under anesthesia.
I'm.
Called into the room.
I grabbed the chart.
Go to the x-ray screen and start toread those x-rays and do so in the
exact same order, from the right maxillato the left maxilla, and then from
(04:08):
the left maxilla left mand order tothe right mandible in that template.
Every time, same exact way.
And so we can do this very quickly.
Go through, look at those x-rays.
Click double click onan x-ray, enlarge it.
See what the defect is or not.
And if it's an extraction, I'm justgonna place an X on that and I'm gonna
(04:30):
go through that whole mouth and putXs on every tooth I'm gonna extract.
And then that portion of theprocedure I'm done with my evaluation.
I will go back obviously andlook at the pathology after.
The technicians have charted that,and then while I'm doing that,
(04:51):
they're calling the owner and givingthem the majority of the estimate.
And so when we're done withthat short process, we're
ready to start the procedure.
So those Xs are over.
The majority of what we're gonna do froma cost standpoint and from a procedure
standpoint in almost every patientthat we see, because as you guys know.
(05:12):
With periodontal disease, the mainthing that we're doing to treat
the patient that has a significantimpact is surgical extractions.
So knowing that those are the mostexpensive and those are gonna be the
most time consuming, consequentlythey're gonna constitute the most,
the biggest portion of that estimate.
We can very confidently give.
(05:34):
The client that estimate.
And then if we need to add somethinglater we let them know that we're
finishing up the fine tuning.
And once the doctor starts, wemay find other things as we get
in surgically, we'll call youif there's any changes on that.
Very effective way of doing that.
Very quick way of getting themajority of the charting done with
(05:54):
the extractions that you're gonnado just by using that x on the
treatment side of your dental chart.
And then we talked about furcation.
So you're gonna find furcation.
They're not super common,but you're gonna find them.
They're not as common asperiodontal pockets by any means,
but you're gonna find them.
So you grade those one throughthree, as we've already discussed.
And then one other thing that we haven'ttalked about is gingivitis index.
(06:18):
So GI one is mild, two is moderate,three is significant gingivitis.
So again, very subjective.
But you can use that to put thosenotations in the chart so that when next
time this patient comes in, if we're notextracting those teeth, we can evaluate
that based on what treatment we've donebased on the interval we've given for that
(06:42):
individual patient, whether it be threemonths, a year, or whatever that might be.
And see how much of a return tothose previous parameters we have,
or how much improvement we have inthat amount of gingivitis that we
are, that we're marking on the chart.
So that becomes important withour periodontal reevaluations.
(07:04):
So we wanna make sure that we, we markthose when we're doing our charting.
And then with the, the fact thatwe are extracting teeth, I can't
stress this enough that there is nojustification whatsoever to clean
(07:26):
teeth that we're going to extract.
It's a total waste of time to do that.
We're trying to get this patientup and out of anesthesia quickly.
So we wanna make sure that we doeverything as efficiently as possible,
and taking the time to clean thoseteeth that are going to be extracted
(07:47):
is absolutely ridiculous in my view.
So I would strongly advise thatyou consider not doing that.
You will have some teeth.
That are going to have a largeamount of calculus that rides
up above the marginal gum line.
That if you take a, an extraction forcepand you crack that off it, that's gonna
(08:09):
help you for sure with your extractions.
But that's very quick.
We're not actually getting downand cleaning when we get done
with those surgical extractions.
Everything's clean.
We've got a new bone level.
That, that we've contouredafter those extractions, so we
don't need to remove that one.
(08:30):
One thing that, that I've had that isan argument but it's not a justifiable
argument, is that if we leave thecalculus on there, we're not, we're
gonna alter our ability to interpretthe radiographs, and that's absolutely
not the case with one exception.
And I've had this a couple timesin practice and they've been in
(08:55):
brachycephalic dogs where there's somuch palatal calculus that when you
take the radiograph with that sensorintraorally, you will superimpose
that calculus over the root structure.
But that's palatal because we'reshooting vestibular to palatal.
(09:19):
If we're shooting co vestibular Paland we have coronal calculus, that
coronal calculus is not going to besuperimposed over the tooth roots.
So again, those would be the onlytimes, and I've only seen that a
couple of times, that you wanna removethe calculus before you take x-rays.
(09:42):
All right, so that'swe'll go on from there.
That's a little pet peeve of minethat I think is super important
that I want everyone to understand.
And then our charting abbreviationsthe periodontal pocket depth is.
Indicated by a p and then a numberwhatever the depth of that pocket is.
(10:04):
And we're not measuring normal pockets.
We're not trying to take the time toplace a designation on every tooth.
The only pockets that we need to puton that dental chart are the ones
that are bleeding when we probe.
And we might have somedramatic differences between
(10:24):
the depth of that probing.
For an individual tooth.
So you can certainly justify puttingdifferent numbers maybe two different
numbers for a tooth that indicatethe periodontal depth of that pocket.
But at the same time, we're notprobing teeth that we're extracting.
(10:44):
There's no reason to do that.
The designation that we'regonna use for extraction.
That justifies the extraction.
Is that periodontal diseaseindex or PD one through four?
If we've got a two through a four,those are indications for extraction.
We don't need any moreinformation on that tooth.
(11:08):
And the reason is we're not gonna comeback in three months or four months
or a year and measure pocket depth.
We don't care what the pocket is.
We know we're gonna extractit based on the bone loss.
So use that and keep in mind theseconcepts so that you can make that process
much less time consuming and think aboutit from that common sense standpoint and
(11:33):
apply those principles in the practice.
I hope you enjoyed that segment.
That is, again, just a part of theperio course that's available now,
starting today Wednesday in May.
This is Sunday, May 4th.
I'm recording this.
So fifth, sixth, Sunday, may Wednesday,May 7th, and this offer goes until
(11:55):
Sunday if it's still available.
We are allowing 50 veterinarypractices to purchase this course.
And with that at a huge discount, weare offering free two applications
of Perio vi, which will treat aboutsix pockets or six patients each.
(12:17):
So 12 patients.
That normally would be $135.
It is free for purchasing this course at ahuge discount, so take advantage of this.
This is only available for ourpodcast listeners and our email
subscribers, so hopefully you'll seethe value and take advantage of it
(12:38):
and enjoy the patient results thatyou'll get as a result of using it.
We'll see you next week.
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