Makkar’s patients are getting more bedside – or chair- side – manner than at your typical Dentist’s office, you’d be right. “One thing I love about the Practice is being able to give back to the community. We have a Free Dental Day, where we give free dental to clients who can’t afford it,” Dr. Makkar explained. “That’s always very special for us. Nowadays, we see it every day. We have a Facebook site and we frequently get requests from people like single parents trying to do their best for their kids. We read them all and these stories affect you. So we decided three years ago to have our first Free Dental Day for residents of Colchester County in which we offer a choice of one of three services: a cleaning, a filling, or an extraction. Our requirement is that the patients have no dental insurance so that those most in need are seen. And it’s been incred- ible every year. The office opens at nine o’clock on Free Dental Day and we do it on Saturday. I’ve been told that you can drive by the office at four o’clock in the morning and that there’s people already lined up – and it’s a long lineup. The beauty of Free Dental Day is that the team, the staff, all get together and contribute without pay, which is phenomenal – everyone is working from the heart. And it affects the team, too. The gratitude from the patients really stays with you.” There are also many behind the scenes efforts that Dr. Makkar and his team take on that make a visit to Victoria Court Dental one worth smiling about. “We continually try to keep up with growth. One of the things we promote a lot in the practice is preventative oral care. We’ve seen our hygienist team go from three to seven, and that’s acquired a lot more patients. One thing that’s important to us is customer service, so if that
means hiring more receptionists, we do. We really try to make sure the patient isn’t waiting any longer than 10 minutes in the waiting room. If they are waiting longer than that, we try and make it up to them. I know per- sonally, for myself, I do not like sitting in waiting rooms – I know what it’s like to look at the clock and see the minutes move past your appointment time. We always want our customer service consistent so we’re going to great lengths to keep up with that.” “He was very influential to me. He’s the one who told me, ‘Hey, you should do this; you’d enjoy this!’ and really got me thinking about dentistry.” When Dr. Makkar says that his team is going to great lengths to keep their customer service promises, he’s not merely being figurative. “We’re one of the few dental offices in Colchester County that embraces new technology; we’re always trying to keep ahead of the curve. In 2001, we were the first to acquire a machine called CEREC, which allows patients to come in and get a crown done in one visit. After scanning, software designs your crown and then an in-house milling station builds it for you,” he explained. “This means that you only get anesthetic once and avoid a great deal of discomfort. We now have all of our offices converted to digital X-rays. We don’t use conventional developing X-rays because that’s what really contributes to the smell in a dental office. We don’t have that smell anymore. Also, with digital X-rays, the radiation dose is so much lower. It’s good for the patients and the health of all our employees.
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