From the design appointment to delivery day — a walk through the two clinical visits that comprise a typical aesthetic case, and what each one is engineered to accomplish.
One of the first questions patients ask, almost immediately after am I a candidate?, is how long the entire process will take. The honest answer surprises most of them. In the vast majority of our aesthetic veneer cases, treatment is completed in just two clinical visits — separated by approximately two weeks of dedicated laboratory work in between.
The two-visit standard is not a marketing claim. It is the practical result of a workflow built deliberately around a single specialist personally executing every step of the case — the diagnosis, the design, the preparations, the temporaries, and the final delivery. Nothing is delegated to a series of assistants, and nothing is improvised between visits.
At every other practice, cases stretch across additional appointments because additional steps are required to coordinate the work between providers and the laboratory. Here, that coordination is already built into the way we plan the case from the start. The design is mine. The preparation is mine. The lab partner, Hojin, has worked alongside me on thousands of cases. The result is a workflow with no handoffs, no surprises, and no unnecessary appointments.
Cases are not completed in two visits because we move quickly. They are completed in two visits because nothing along the way is improvised.
The interval between your two visits is not waiting time. It is the most important part of the entire case. While you are wearing your custom temporaries — designed personally by Dr. Schelkopf to preview the final look, feel, and function of your smile — Hojin is hand-layering your final ceramics over the course of multiple days. Powders, shades, translucencies, and incisal effects are built layer by layer onto each tooth, then characterized to mimic the optical depth of natural enamel.
When you return for delivery, the work has already been verified, photographed, and prepared for a seamless try-in. In nearly every case, the restorations are accepted on the first try-in and bonded the same visit. The treatment is complete. The smile is yours.
For patients flying in from out of state or out of the country — and a great many of ours are — the two-visit cadence allows the entire transformation to be completed in two carefully spaced trips, with a beautiful set of temporaries to return home in between.
A look at what actually happens in each clinical appointment, and what happens in the two weeks of laboratory craftsmanship in between.
The first visit is where the case is built. Photographs, scans, and records are taken; the smile design is finalized by Dr. Schelkopf; the teeth are minimally prepared as needed; and a hand-shaped temporary set is fitted directly from the design so that the preview of your final smile is in place before you leave the office.
In between your two visits, Hojin hand-layers your final ceramics — powders, shades, translucencies, and incisal effects built tooth by tooth to mimic the optical depth of natural enamel. It is the most labor-intensive stage of the case and the reason the result looks like real teeth, not restorations.
The final visit is the one patients remember. Temporaries are removed, the new restorations are tried in, refined as needed, and bonded into place. Because of how tightly the design and laboratory work are controlled, nearly every case is accepted on the first try-in and delivered the same appointment. You leave with your final smile.
Out-of-state patients fly in regularly — we can help schedule your design appointment and your delivery visit around your travel.