Loveland Dental Hygiene

By Brittany Anas Photos by Jonathan Castner

Tina Riss, who has more than a decade of experience as a dental hygienist, has a business motto: She treats her patients as she would her own family members. Riss wants her patients to not just love their smiles, but also have healthy mouths – which contributes to greater overall health.

To help, Riss, RDH, owns her own independent dental hygiene practice – Loveland Dental Hygiene, LLC – where she offers affordable, flexible care in a relaxed environment. Her business serves clients in Loveland and the surrounding Northern Colorado communities, including Greeley, Berthoud and Fort Collins.

“It’s important to me to provide educational, professional, gentle and personalized care entirely focused on my patients,” Riss says.

Because she’s not in a traditional office, she’s able to take as much time as needed with clients and many enjoy that they are the only patients in her quiet and relaxed office during their appointments.

At Loveland Dental Hygiene, LLC — located at 373 E. 27th St. in Loveland—Riss provides several services in the preventative niche, including cleanings, X-rays, fluoride treatments, placing sealants and oral cancer screenings.

When it comes to cleaning services, Riss is able to perform both routine and periodontal cleanings. Deep cleanings includes scaling and root planing to remove bacterial toxins, tartar and plaque that forms below the gum tissue to stop gum disease from progressing.

Other services Riss provides at Loveland Dental Hygiene include teeth whitening, which can including building custom trays that clients can take home so they can use whitening gels to whiten and brighten their teeth.

Riss serves a wide-range of patients, from children to elderly. She’s able to provide extra cleanings required of patients with periodontal disease as well as patients who have braces and need extra cleanings to keep their gums healthy.

A tenet of Riss’ practice is that dental care is affordable and accessible; because of this she has a flat fee for cleanings and evaluations and also accepts all insurances, including Medicaid. Oftentimes, people who are on Medicaid are limited in their choices for quality dental care.

“I love working with my patients,” Riss says. “I have the chance to build really strong relationships with them and catch up with them every four to six months.”
Riss says she also enjoys providing education to her patients that can help them improve their health.

“I’m very patient and always want to make sure all of their questions are answered,” she says.

It’s important for Riss that her patients understand dental health and how to prevent and treat dental diseases because maintaining a healthy mouth, she says, strongly contributes to overall health.

Riss partners with dentists in the community and is able to refer her patients to dentists that she works with if they don’t already have regular dentists. Should a patient require restorative or speciality care, Riss is able to make a referral to a provider. Riss also uses digital X-rays, which provide less radiation and that allows her to easily send the X-rays to her patients’ dentists or specialists.

Some of her tips and main points of education?

Yes, you need to floss! A small study a couple years back didn’t prove the benefit of flossing, and it picked up traction in news headlines and subsequently led to questions from dental patients. But, the daily habit is certainly something that’s important to keeping your mouth healthy. (The American Dental Association responded to the study saying “lack of strong evidence doesn’t equate to a lack of effectiveness.”) Flossing, Riss explains, is important to getting plaque out of your mouth. Otherwise, bacteria can cause inflammation in not just your mouth, but your whole body. She recommends her clients floss in a C-shape and with a thick, substantial floss that is capable of removing the dental plaque.

Also, some medications can cause dry mouth which can lead to decay, so Riss says she spends the time needed to educate her patients on dry mouth regimens and products that can help saliva flow.

Another tip?

Invest in an electric toothbrush, Riss suggests. She said she thinks people tend to brush longer with an electric toothbrush because of the two-minute timers that come with brushes. Plus the brushes can move in a way that is difficult to manually emulate, she says.

Want to schedule a dental cleaning?

To schedule an appointment or learn more, contact Tina Riss at Loveland Dental Hygiene, LLC at (970)-776-0585 or e-mail her at lovelanddentalhygiene@gmail.com