Terms and Conditions Clinics

At Banning Dental Group, we constantly endeavour to provide the highest quality service that we can. This agreement provides further details of our terms and conditions of service. As a patient of Banning Dental Group, we ask that you agree to follow these terms and conditions.

Treatment planning

Once your treatment plan has been agreed upon with the Dentist or Dental Specialist, we will provide printed details of your treatment plan. If this plan changes due to radiographic or clinical findings, we will inform you and discuss this with you. Treatment plans and fees are valid for 90 days from the date the treatment was prescribed. If you wish to query any points on your treatment plan, please do not hesitate to ask us before booking the appointments for actual treatments.

Consent forms

Specific treatments require the completion of a written consent form. This is to explain the treatment, aftercare, any particular risks and benefits to you thoroughly before any of these treatments are carried out.
Consent for any treatment can be withdrawn at any point by the patient or dental professional.

Fees

Fees for treatment are due on the day the treatment is provided. We do not operate an account in an arrears facility, and we require payments to be settled at the appointment where treatment is provided. Where treatment incurs a laboratory fee, a minimum of 50% of the total fee is due BEFORE the appointment where impressions are taken. The remaining balance is to be settled at this appointment. For specific treatments like Dental Implants and Invisalign, fees are taken in staged payments at each visit as outlined in your treatment plan.
Fees for treatment where intravenous sedation is included must be settled before the appointment to avoid financial transactions or signatures being required whilst a client is still under the influence of the sedative.
In cases where treatment is paid for on finance through a Finance company, please be aware that the finance agreement must be accepted and signed before starting that treatment. Please note that finance is only available on treatments over £250.00, not including Emergency Dental Treatment, and that a minimum deposit may also be required.
If you have financed any of your treatment costs through the finance company and wish to cancel your treatment after signing the agreement forms, please be aware that a cancellation fee of up to 15% of the total finance amount will be charged. In some circumstances, we reserve the right to request payment in advance for certain treatments.

Banning Dental Group reserves the right to charge time-based deposits for booking future appointments. Deposits are deductible from the cost of treatment. When we book free consultations, we require a refundable deposit of £40 to secure the appointment.
This deposit can either be refunded to you on attendance or credited towards your treatment with us.

Payment methods accepted

Cash
Debit/Credit Card including American Express

Banning Dental Group does not accept any payments by cheque. Please note that unpaid accounts are routinely referred to a Debt Collection Agency or the Small Claims Court, and we reserve the right to recover all costs incurred in doing so.

Late cancellation or missed appointments

We require a minimum of 48 business hours notice to cancel an arranged appointment with our General Dentist or Hygienist, and 72 business hours notice is required for a set appointment with our Specialist Dentists. When we schedule an appointment for a patient, we book the surgery time off for that patient’s treatment. Failure to give the appropriate notice of cancellation or not attending your appointment will result in a Failed Appointment Fee being charged. This fee is charged per 30 minutes of the appointment failed and is to cover the cost of the surgery time wasted. The cancellation fees are:

Late cancellation or failed appointment fees	Appointment scheduled for 30 minutes or less	Appointment scheduled between 30-60 minutes	Appointment scheduled 60 minutes and over
Dental Hygienist	£50.00	£100.00	+£50.00 per 30 minutes
Dental Therapist	£50.00	£100.00	+£50.00 per 30 minutes
Aesthetics Practitioner	£125.00	£250.00	+£125.00 per 30 minutes
General Dentist	£125.00	£250.00	+£125.00 per 30 minutes
Specialist Dentist	£200.00	£400.00	+£200.00 per 30 minutes

Failed Appointment fees must be settled before any other appointment is offered.
We reserve the right to take a minimum of 50% deposit to book further appointments for missed appointments or short notice cancellations.
Please note: it is also down to the clinic discretion if further appointments can be booked for any late cancellations or missed appointments.

Late for appointments

Banning Dental Group understand that some patients travel long distances to get to the clinic, and in some cases, being late for appointments can be unavoidable. If you are more than 10 minutes, please be aware that you may be asked to reschedule your appointment.

Personal Details

You must give a complete medical history and details of any medication you take. Should these change in any way, you need to tell your Dentist. The patient’s responsibility is to inform the clinic of any changes in personal details and medical history.

Guarantee

At Banning Dental Group, we offer a 12-month guarantee for permanent fillings and 36 months for crown and bridgework, provided that the following conditions are met:
The patient has fully paid for the treatment and does not owe the practise any money for the treatment received.
The restorations have not been damaged as a result of an accident, trauma or excessive grinding.
The patient has followed all post-treatment maintenance recommendations made by our dentists.
The patient has attended a routine examination every six months.
Dental implants are covered with insurance for the first year, and you will be able to extend this for subsequent years. We also offer a 5-year protection plan with our implant treatments. The protection also gives you cover for any emergency that may cause the implant, the components, or crown/bridge on the implants. This cover is valid across all of our clinics and selected specialist clinics in the UK.
Invisalign treatment comes with a guarantee by Align technology in some cases. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with these when you have Invisalign treatment. Some treatments may have a guarantee of less than one year, and in this case, you will be informed by your Dentist either verbally or in writing, or both.

Use of Images and X-rays

Banning Dental Group may use images and x-rays of your smile and teeth only for marketing and educational purposes on the Banning Dental Group website and promotional and educational literature. Your name will never be published, and your identity will never be disclosed. However, if you DO NOT wish for us to use your images and x-rays in this way, please let us know. We may also ask you to participate in videos in collaboration with our videographers. Such arrangements will be discussed with you before and agreed separately.
Pictures of your teeth are an essential part of communication with the dental laboratory that handmade dental restorations and is required to ensure the best aesthetic results.

Use of patient contact details

At Banning Dental Group, the health of our patients is our highest priority, and we also like to keep our patients informed of various significant changes at the clinic and our latest special offers. We want to remind our patients of their appointments, appointments, and other various essential reminders when they are due for appointments. On this note, you may be periodically contacted by the clinic via phone, text, email or by letter in the post. If you DO NOT wish to be contacted by the clinic by any or all of these means, please let us know.

Complaint’s policy

If you should be concerned about the service you have received from the dentists or any member of staff working in practice, please let us know. We operate a Practice Complaints Procedure that adheres to national criteria.
We hope that most problems can be sorted out easily and quickly, often at the time they arise, and with the person concerned. If your problem cannot be sorted out in this way and you wish to let us know, please do so as soon as possible to enable us to establish what has happened more easily.
Some complaints are best dealt with on a less formal basis by discussing your concerns with our Practice Team. We will explain the complaints procedure to you and will ensure your matters are dealt with promptly. If you are not fully satisfied with the outcome after dealing with the practice team, they will assist you in progressing your complaint to the more formal process outlined below.
Formal complaints should be put in writing and addressed to our company complaints officer Leah Lancashire via leah@banningdental.co.uk. Your complaint will be acknowledged in writing within three working days. We will outline what we will investigate, how and give an approximate timescale that is best suited to you to keep you informed of the progress of the investigation and the timeframe of how long we think it will take to be completed. We shall keep you informed regularly as far as practically possible. We shall then offer you a full explanation or arrange a meeting with those involved and discuss this confidentially either in writing or in person within our private discussion area.

In investigating the complaint, we shall aim to:

Find out what happened and what went wrong.
Keep proper and comprehensive records of any complaint received.
Make it possible for you to discuss the problems with those concerned if you wish to do so.
Give you an estimated timescale for the investigation to be completed.
Gain your consent where information may need to be shared with insurers, indemnifiers or legal advisers.
Make sure that you receive notification of the outcome of our investigation of your complaint where appropriate within ten working days, however also keep you informed throughout.
Identify what we can do to ensure that it does not happen again, as all complaints are monitored closely as part of our commitment to improving the practice standards.

If you are not satisfied at any point within the investigation, your complaint will be sent to our Clinical Lead. Alternatively, you can use the external contacts below;

Dental Complaints Service Stephenson House 2 Cherry Orchard Road Croydon CR0 6BA Telephone: 020 8253 0800

General Dental Council 37 Wimpole Street London W1G 8DQ Email: www.gdc-uk.org Telephone: 0845 222 4141 or 020 7887 3800

No tolerance/Abuse policy

We operate a zero-tolerance policy to abuse our Dentists and staff, loud/disorderly/drunken behaviour, persistent missing and late cancellation of appointments (after multiple warnings). In these situations, Banning Dental Group reserves the right to refuse treatment and admission.

Written by: Leah Lancashire Approved by: CEO/Operations Director, Date: 17th July 2021 Review date: 17th July 2022