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stellarsmile2_2023-06-17-13-30-56

We are back here on spotlight New Jersey with my guest today, Doctor Marie Jackson, who is a dentist, she owns the Stellar Smiles Center and I want to talk about the services that you offer. Excellent. Thank you. We offer uh comprehensive dental care for uh younger Children as well as adults. Uh So we see all different ages. Uh and my biggest thing is making sure people feel comfortable. Uh as I said, you know, sometimes people can feel embarrassed about things they've gone through and we want to restore those smiles. So that could be with um some implant work. I usually work with some specialists for that as well as dentures, crowns Mannes. We do some limited orthodontics. So people may be familiar with Invisalign. We do some cases of that and one of the things I'm so glad to see having grown in dentistry is so much more with digital dentistry. So most offices now have digital X rays, which we also have and that reduces a lot of the radiation. People have been so concerned about over the years and now we're seeing more digital imaging coming into play. So we use digital scanner when we're uh working on people, you know, to show them their, to send things to the labs and this uh makes things kind of a lot more visual. I love that we can show people, people what we're looking to do where there may be some problem zones and just let them see what's going on in their own mouths. It's nice to know these things. Do you like for parents to start bringing their kids in to see a dentist around what? Age two, believe it or not? Age one. Now, at that age, I'll usually refer to a pediatric dentist and that's because to be frank at one kids may scream and they may also bite. And so we wanna make sure we wanna make sure that they're in that right environment when they first start so that they can feel comfortable because again, the key for patients is no matter what the age is, we wanna make sure we maximize comfort and we wanna make sure we have them in a situation where they want to always continue to go to the dentist. How do you encourage people, adults who are, are are afraid to come to the dentist? How do you help them overcome that fear? I think a lot of it is finding out what the fear is based in. So when you're working in the mouth, it's scary, you know, to have a stranger in your face, their hands are in your face. That's very intimate and it makes you feel very vulnerable. So I always like to explain what's going on. So I'm gonna tell you what I'm gonna do first, I'm gonna break down. If anything's gonna smell funny, taste funny. Sound funny. This way. It's not a surprise to you because some of the stuff is really, uh the senses are heightened because it's literally taking place in your head. So, what I hear is one thing, what you hear as a patient, it's a lot louder and stronger and, and honestly scarier. So for some people, for those who are afraid, it may have been, they had a bad experience with the dentist, especially when they were younger. I hear so many people have gone through that. So I usually will recommend, hey, come in for just a consultation. We can just look with a mirror, we can look at things with the camera, tell me what your concerns are and tell me where you feel afraid and we go from there and coming up at noon, we'll chat about Doctor Jackson's community outreach and events.

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stellarsmile3_2023-06-17-13-31-00

Doctor Marie Jackson is my guest here on Spotlight New Jersey. She is a dentist. Her practice in Mont Clair is called Stellar Smile Center. And you also do a lot of community outreach particularly at Rutgers and events for which we have video to show you her racks. So over the years, I knew I was very fortunate that I was exposed to dentistry, very young. So I've done about at least 100 career day programs all throughout the Essex County and surrounding areas. And I, I think it's so important for kids to see someone sometimes who looks like them and to say, hey, I never thought about being a dentist, especially because uh most of the times when we see dentists on TV, they look scary or mean, we all think of Steve Martin in a little shop of horrors and, and that is what everyone has categorized us as scary health care providers. And I like to show them we're not all scary or scary looking. So that's one of the things I like to do and with Rutgers and uh a lot of students who are there, I I myself and some other alumni and former faculty have come together to make sure we're in touch with uh the Student National Dental Association, which is a Black student organization. It was initially an offshoot of the National Dental Association, which was formed when dentists were not allowed in the American Black dentists were not allowed in the American Dental Association. There was a time that happened. Yes, it was. Yes, absolutely. And so, um because there's such a low percentage of black dentists, about 3.8% in the US. We want to make sure students going through dental school are supported. So we want to make so they have a network of uh alumni, they can reach out to if they have questions about things, whether it's clinically or navigating through school and someone who's, you know, been on faculty in the past, uh retired friend of mine who was once a faculty member, my former faculty, she's another person I'll reach out to, to say, hey, the students having this issue, what do we do? And people need to see that support and that's something that I really am happy to uh be able to help navigate. And we usually will do is have a get together with students with alumni so that they say, hey, you know, look, we're done, we made it, we're out, what can we do to be of help to you? What can we do to be of service of you come to us if you have any issues that you have, uh, someone else out there knowing that, you know, you're getting that support. I think that really helps as a student because you may not feel that while you're navigating the system in school and it's tough being a dental student, not to mention. Oh, yes. Yeah. And, and these days students are coming out of school with 350 to $400,000 worth of student loans for dental school alone. So, you know, that's so important when you're taking such a big financial endeavor and such a heavy duty mode of uh, school work, you wanna make sure that if something's not feeling right, you have somewhere to reach and what is the reaction you get when people see you are a black female dentist? So in some circumstances, they're like, oh my gosh, I, you're one of us, you know, I hear that and I love that because, you know, it's something where I think a lot of patients feel a sense of trust when they come to me with that dental insurance and how your coverage works. That's tomorrow at six AM.

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stellarsmile4_2023-06-18-11-48-09

Back here on spotlight New Jersey with Doctor Marie Jackson, the owner of Stellar Smile Center in Montclair. And we want to talk about insurance. Do people understand how it works for dentistry? Most people don't. So dental insurance is a little different than medical. You know, you have a monthly premium, you'll have a deductible and that's where a lot of the similarities end. So dental insurance has something called an annual benefit maximum. So you have a preset number of uh dental insurance dollars dollars you have for the year. So usually it ranges from 1000 to $2000 once you've used that, that's it. So if you have preventive care, usually it's fully covered and it's taken out that maximum. But if you have any other work, usually it's covered at a certain percentage. Be it 80% or 50% you're usually responsible for the other portion of that. But if you hit that, whatever the maximum is, that's it. And so the rest is out of pocket. So a lot of times if somebody has, you know, God forbid an accent where a tooth breaks, you know, say they bite on an olive and they have to have some work done a lot of that might be out of pocket because if you've gone through that maximum, that's it. It does work like a coupon in that. If you are using the insurance and you're staying within your network, you get a little bit of a break. So there's that, so you have some reprieve. But I always like to make sure, you know, we are very big on communication at the office and letting patients know. We don't want you to have a surprise. Here's what we're looking at. I found that out when I had two root canals in the same year. Yeah, a lot of out of pocket there. That'll do it. The importance of screenings that's critical. So a lot of times people think, you know, someone has no teeth and they have dentures like, oh, I don't have to go to the dentist. However, when you're going in and you're getting your check up, we're not just looking at teeth, we're looking at everything on you in your mouth. So we're looking at your lips, we're looking inside of your lips, we're looking at your cheeks, we're looking at the gums. So I do recommend if a patient has dentures, they come in once a year because no one's checking underneath your tongue. No one's check in the side of your tongue. These are areas where oral cancer can exist and that can be really critical to make sure that it's taken care of early because we don't want that to progress. Those who are at higher risk of oral cancer are smokers of all type, especially any type of tobacco, of course, cigarettes, chewing tobacco, but even cigars, hookah marijuana, any type of smoking. And now we're seeing vaping can put you at risk of oral cancer. Do people realize their gums indicate the status of your health too? Just like your eyes they can. And a lot of times people aren't aware of what to do. So, you know, you go in, you get screened and you're checked for these things and we show patients, hey, your gums are not in the best of health or you know, you have a lot of bleeding going on and we let patients know of ways to take care of that so that they can prevent that same bacteria that's in their mouth from getting into their bloodstream through their gums. And coming up at nine, Doctor Jackson talks about the challenges of opening a small business and surviving the pandemic.

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stellarsmile5_2023-06-18-11-48-13

This weekend, we are talking with Doctor Marie Jackson, the owner of Stellar Smile Center in Mont Clair. We want to talk about the challenges of what it's like opening and running a small business. So having a small business is like a constantly moving thing. So when you first open, it definitely is challenging because everything is on you. And so you wanna make sure you're doing everything right? So not only are you doing the clinical work in dentistry, but you wanna make sure you find the right team that takes time. And I'm very fortunate in that uh most of my team members have been with me quite a few years. Now. How many team members do you have? We have four team members, including myself and uh you know, all of them have been there several years. So when people call, they know who they're talking to, you know, people come in, they ask for them by name, but that took a lot of time to a lot of loyalty. Oh yeah. And, and we've been very fortunate with that and I, in the same way, I wanted a healthy happy environment and uh a safe where patients feel safe. I wanted that for my employees as well. And you know, any team member that comes on. So that was really important to me in creating um my office environment. Considering how intimate dentistry is with the patients. How did you all fare during the pandemic? It was tough. So everyone in the state of New Jersey, all dentists, we all had to shut down. Uh It was some started earlier, some started later. Uh I remember the, that big weekend after I think it was March 14th was our last working day. And then I said, I think we may need to not come in for a week or two, which turned into about 2.5 months. Eventually, the state required all dental offices to shut down at the end of uh March 2020. And when we came back, we did it slowly and uh we uh during the time we were closed, it was kind of just figuring out what can we do to mitigate the spread. So we put in air purifiers, which we're still using to this day. Uh made sure we have all type of protective gear, which we still use today. And at that time when we first opened, we were screening every patient outside of the office first just to make sure things were going well. And then what we would do is just kind of have people wait in their cars until it was time. For them to come in. We only open gradually. So we weren't just full on full scene back to normal. We started out just with me working with my front desk and kind of seeing how things went. And then we worked our way into more time bringing on the hygienist and ultimately bringing everybody back in like normal in terms of how we function, but still going through screenings. And so it, it worked really well and I was really happy with how things went. Although many people did come down with COVID later on, we found that it was years out before, you know, anything happened along those lines with the team members. So we were very, very fortunate. And in our final segment at noon, Dr Jackson talks about the importance of at home preventative care in dentistry.

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stellarsmile6_2023-06-18-12-21-30

We are back chatting with Doctor Marie Jackson of Stellar Smile Center that is her business that she launched 10 years ago come January of 2024. Yes, we talked about the services of course, that you offer. What can people do at home to enhance their own preventative dental care? Well, the biggest thing is making sure that you're brushing and flossing. Well, so I tell patients you want to brush for two full minutes morning and night and you want to use the circular motion gently. Also making sure that you're flossing and flossing effectively. We don't want to see people sawing at their gums or hurting themselves if it hurts, you're flossing wrong. So you want to approach things very gently. The idea of cleaning things without being aggressive is really important in the mouth. We do be times when people are really rough. So I describe it as um when you brush your teeth, you wanna brush with the same force you use to brush hairs on a baby's head. You want to Yes, that's a good way to put it. So you wanna avoid that um scouring pad in the cast iron skillet. A lot of times people are really going hard and we'll see the results of that where gum tissue is worn away from the teeth and a lot of the is worn away. So we wanna make sure we prevent that and avoid that as much as possible. So we're told to brush your teeth. Yes, I was told as I got older, you do clean the gum area. As you said, you don't scurry those teeth to wear down the enamel, correct? You wanna keep it gentle, you know, plaque that builds up on everyone's teeth. After we eat any type of carbohydrate, it's soft so you can actually wipe it off with a piece of gauze. So think about how soft that is. So toothbrush you use that and you're applying that force gently to help remove the soft plaque. If anything is hardened, that's something that you really can't remove the toothbrush and that needs to be removed professionally with dental hygienist. What about people who like to get these battery operated or electric toothbrushes to help remove plaque? I'm a fan of ones that are rechargeable. Most of them now have built in two minute timers and a lot of them even have sensors so that when you're brushing your teeth, you're not over doing the force. A lot of them will kind of turn red to let you know that, hey, you're going a little bit too rough and a lot of them now will see they even have apps that are connected to your phone through Bluetooth. So they'll let you know, hey, did you miss an area where else you need to go? And it's great to see technology for home benefiting the patients. And what about your diet in terms of uh protecting your teeth? The biggest thing is watching out for processed carbohydrates and that includes soft drinks. And I tell people, one of things you need to be mindful of is acidic drinks. So I love, love salsa water, but you can't sip it all day through the day because that acid does wear at that, at the teeth. You can see all of my segments with Dr Marie Jackson on my facebook page and news 12 dot com.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/feae1c5e-040f-411d-931b-45a353d1e7fc/feae1c5e-040f-411d-931b-45a353d1e7fc.transcribe

Marie M. Jackson, D.M.D., F.A.G.D., owner of the Stellar Smile Center in Montclair, joined Della Crews to discuss her journey through dentistry and her philosophy when it comes to oral health awareness.

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