Why we scan before we quote
9 May 2026
A price given before a scan is a guess with a number attached. The scan costs us an appointment. Quoting without it costs the patient their trust, usually at the worst possible moment.
A standard dental x-ray is a flat image. It shows you that a tooth is missing. It does not reliably show how much bone is there in three dimensions, how close the inferior alveolar nerve runs to where an implant would go, or where the floor of the sinus has ended up.
A CBCT scan shows all three. It is a few seconds in a machine, it uses a fraction of the radiation of a medical CT, and it is the difference between planning an implant and estimating one.
The commercial temptation is obvious. A number on the phone converts enquiries. The problem arrives later, when the scan is finally taken and the plan has to change, and the patient has already paid a deposit against a figure that was never based on anything. That conversation ends badly however carefully it is handled, because the patient is right to be annoyed.
So we do it in the other order. Scan, plan, written cost, and then you decide with everything in front of you. It converts fewer enquiries and it produces almost no arguments, and after eighteen years we would not run it any other way.
What teeth in a day actually means
The phrase is not a lie. It is a true description of about a quarter of the treatment, and the other three quarters are the part you should ask about.
What a bone graft adds to the timeline
Four to six months, in front of everything else. It is the single largest thing a scan changes about a plan, and it is the most common reason a quote given over the phone turns out to be wrong.