One in six Americans has had emergency dental surgery in the last 12 months, such as an emergency tooth removal. Many people search “emergency dentist near me” and go to the wrong place for their emergency surgery, which ends up causing way more harm than good.
If you’ve been searching the internet for answers to “can the ER do dental work,” the truth is that hospital rooms can’t help you much if you go to the emergency room with a toothache for emergency dental services. What usually happens if you require emergency tooth extraction and head to the ER is that you get charged a hospital fee, and you have to go to the dentist anyway. In most cases, you can avoid the hospital emergency room and take your emergency needs right to your dentist.
What is Classed as a Dental Emergency?
First of all, you need to think about what emergency dental care actually is. Most dentists will allow you to walk in if you are having an emergency, so keep that in mind if at all possible. You may be experiencing a dental emergency if you have the following:
- Persistent bleeding
- Missing permanent tooth
- Fracture or injury to the facial bones
- Swelling
- Signs of an infection, such as a dental abscess
What’s Not A Dental Emergency?
The following are not classed as emergency dentistry:
- Damaged or broken teeth that do not hurt
- Lost bridges or implants
- Mild toothache
- Broken dentures
It doesn’t matter what your dental emergency is; if you are in severe pain you need to make sure that you contact your emergency dentist right away. When you do, they can then advise you accordingly about dental treatment.
Does the ER Handle Dental Emergencies?
If you’ve been searching “do ERs have dentists,” or “can urgent care pull teeth,” or “emergency tooth removal near me,” read on to find answers!
In general, it’s important to know that emergency rooms do not have dentists on hand. So if you walk into an emergency room or one of the local urgent care centers for a 24-hour emergency dental extraction or other dental problems, you’ll most likely be given antibiotics or pain medication and told to go to your dentist. This leaves you with not only the cost of emergency tooth extraction at a dentist’s office, but also a hefty hospital bill just to be told to see a dentist!
Hospital staff cannot pull teeth. In fact, most hospitals don’t have an emergency dental services team on hand and therefore don’t pull teeth. If you have severe bleeding on the site of your tooth and require an emergency tooth extraction, you can go to your emergency room. But often, they can only give you medication for dental pain. They can also stabilize you if your bleeding happens to be life-threatening. You will still need a dentist visit to help eliminate the problem.
Only visit the ER if you have a dangerous situation but are unable to go to your regular dentist or if you are unable to reach them. If you are searching for “emergency dental near me,” or “dentist that pull teeth same day,” because you need urgent dental care, our dentist on 10 Mile Road and Gratiot will be able to advise you on the treatment you need to undergo, with or without dental insurance. He will also be able to advise you on the steps that you can take to try and tend to your issue in the meantime. You may also want to talk with your dentist on Gratiot to see if you can get the swelling down if required. Most of the time, an ice pack or something very cold will help you reduce it enough so that when you do manage to get to the dental office, they can treat the issue without having to wait for the swelling to go down even further.
