Identifying dentistry cases for referral

Benita Altier, LVT, VTS (Dentistry), owner of Pawsitive Dental Education, provides professional dental instruction and consultation to veterinary practices and conferences, both in the US and internationals. A presenting speaker a the 2025 Fetch dvm360 Conference in Long Beach, California, Altier is president-elect for the Arizona Veterinary Technician Association as well as a past president for the Academy of Veterinary Dental Technicians.

In a dvm360 interview, Altier different types of dental cases seen by general practitioners that might be better suited for a veterinary professional specializing in dentistry. This video is a portion of the interview that answers the question 'when should a general practitioner refer a case to a veterinary dentist?'

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The following is a transcript, lightly edited for clarity:

Benita Altier, LVT, VTS (Dentistry): Things that veterinary dentists are really going to be the one you want to send [patients] to would be things like endodontics, which is root canal therapy or vital pulp therapy, those kind of things, things that treat the inside of the tooth to save them. Also, things like advanced cases of oral maxillofacial surgery because of masses, or mandibulectomies and maxillectomies.

Orthodontics. So if there's going to be braces put on. I don't think most general practitioner veterinarians are, probably, really educated on doing something like that. So that's certainly something that a veterinary dentist could approach.

Tooth movement, strategic extractions [and] things like that, that would require trying to correct uncomfortable mouth closure. Things like prosthodontics, which is putting crowns on teeth, which is something that we often do. If there's going to be a root canal performed, then potentially there's going to be a crown placed.

So those things, I don't think most general practitioner veterinarians should probably approach because of the fact that they take a lot of special training material skills, and if you don't do very many of them, like if you only did 2 root canals a year, it's pretty hard to ever get very skilled or efficient at that particular thing. If you're a general practitioner veterinarian, investing in something like that might not be what you'd want to do.

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To view additional coverage of the Fetch Long Beach conference from the dvm360 content team, visit the event’s dedicated news page: https://www.dvm360.com/conference/fetch-long-beach