Will I go back to my regular dentist after treatment?

The honest answer

Yes. After your specialist treatment is complete, you return to your general dentist's care. Your general dentist remains your primary dental provider; we are the team that supplements them for the specific aspect of treatment that required specialist scope.

This is the principle, and below is the detail.

Why patients worry about this

Patients sometimes raise this concern because:

• They have a long-standing relationship with their dentist and do not want to change.
• They have heard stories of patients being "taken over" by another practice once referred.
• They worry that the specialist will redirect their routine care to the specialist practice.
• They worry that the specialist will subtly recommend specialist follow-ups that are really just routine cleanings at a higher fee.

These are legitimate worries. The honest framing is that you are entitled to expect a clean professional boundary between specialist work and general dental care. We hold ourselves to that boundary, and the relationship with referring dentists in our area depends on it.

What the boundary looks like in practice

General dentistry stays with your general dentist

• Routine check-ups — your general dentist continues to do these at your usual cadence.
• Routine cleaning (where there is no periodontal disease history) — your general dentist's hygienist.
• Fillings, crowns, root canals, bridges — your general dentist or, where complex, a prosthodontist they refer to.
• Routine dental advice about brushing, flossing, fluoride, diet — your general dentist.

Specialist care continues only when specialist scope is required

There are situations where you continue to see us alongside your general dentist:

• Periodontal maintenance after periodontitis treatment. Patients with treated periodontitis benefit from periodontal hygienist maintenance every 3 to 4 months — at our practice, with the specialist hygienist whose training matches the clinical pathway. Your general dentist continues to do your regular check-ups at the cadence they recommend.
• Surveillance of oral lesions. Patients under surveillance for a potentially malignant lesion (lichen planus, leukoplakia) see us at the surveillance interval set by the diagnosis — typically every 6 to 12 months. Your general dentist continues to do everything else.
• Implant maintenance. Patients with dental implants benefit from periodic specialist review of the peri-implant tissues. This is usually scheduled around the patient's general dental visits, not in place of them.

In each of these cases, the specialist follow-up is the part of care that requires specialist scope. Everything else is general dentistry and lives with your general dentist.

What we do NOT do

To be explicit:

• We do not perform routine cleanings on patients without a periodontal-disease history. If you do not have treated periodontitis, your hygiene visits are with your general dentist's hygienist.
• We do not do fillings, crowns, root canals, or bridges. Those are general dental scope.
• We do not market routine dental services to our specialist patients.
• We do not contact your general dentist to suggest they refer you to us for routine care.
• We do not recall you for visits that have no specialist clinical purpose.

This boundary is grounded in South Africa's codified rules of conduct. Under the dentist annexure to the HPCSA Ethical Rules of Conduct, a dentist or dental specialist "shall perform professional acts only in the field of dentistry in which he or she was educated and trained and in which he or she has gained experience," and "shall not fail to communicate and cooperate with dentists, dental specialists and other health practitioners in the diagnosis and treatment of a patient" (HPCSA Ethical Rules of Conduct, dentist annexure rule 2(a)–(b); general Rule 21).¹ So confining ourselves to specialist scope, and cooperating with your dentist, are professional obligations — not just preferences. The HPCSA Scope of the Professions sets out what the Periodontics and Oral Medicine specialty covers, which is the same boundary described above (HPCSA Scope of the Professions).²

Returning you to your dentist for routine care is a step further than the rules require. There is no codified HPCSA rule that obliges a specialist to return a patient; we frame it as the professional norm of a referral practice and as our own practice policy.

The Refer & Return Promise

Our written promise to every referring dentist is the formal articulation of how we work. The seven points:

1. We acknowledge receipt of every referral — typically the same working day.
2. We contact the patient promptly to schedule a consultation.
3. We keep the referring dentist updated through treatment.
4. We provide a clear written treatment summary at the end.
5. We do not unnecessarily take over general dentistry.
6. We return the patient for ongoing restorative care.
7. We are available for clinical referral questions at any time.

Points 5 and 6 are the explicit version of the answer to this page's question. We made these the cornerstone of our practice because we believe a specialist relationship that respects the patient's existing dental care produces better outcomes for everyone — the patient, the general dentist, and the specialist.

What if my dentist suggests I see them less often

This sometimes happens organically. A patient who is on quarterly periodontal maintenance with us, and 6-monthly check-ups with their dentist, may have their dentist say "since you're being seen so often by the periodontist, let's stretch out our visits." That is a clinical conversation between you and your dentist.

We do not initiate that conversation. If you prefer to keep your dentist visits at the same cadence as before, do so.

What if I want to change dentists

Patients sometimes use a specialist referral as a moment to reconsider their dental care more broadly. That is your decision. If you tell us you would like a suggestion of a general dentist in your area, we will give you names of practices we have worked with. We do not have a financial relationship with any of them; the suggestions are clinical recommendations only.

What if I have moved and need a new dentist

Different scenario. If you have moved to a new area and no longer have a general dentist, and you would like a recommendation, we are happy to suggest practices in your new area where we have professional relationships or know the reputation. The basis is the same: clinical, not financial.

This article is general educational content. The specifics of how your care is coordinated between us and your general dentist are discussed at consultation.