Advanced Sleep Dental Solutions is a purpose-built dental day surgery at 664 Mountain Hwy, Bayswater. It exists for one reason: to give dentists in Melbourne's east somewhere to treat the patients they cannot treat in the chair, without a hospital admission and without a public waiting list.
This is what referring dentists most often want to know.
It is a facility, not a competing practice
ASDS does not employ dentists and does not take patients of its own. Visiting dentists bring their own patients, carry out their own treatment, and the patient returns to their own clinic afterwards. You remain the treating dentist throughout.
That distinction is the whole basis of the arrangement. Referring a patient here does not put your relationship with them at risk.
A realistic time estimate. This is the single most important number you will supply, and the one most often understated. Estimate the time the treatment will genuinely take, including the difficult extraction you are hoping will be straightforward. An estimate given as "about an hour and a half" that runs to three hours affects the facility fee, the anaesthetic fee, the patient's rebate and the running of everyone else's list that day.
The patients it is built for
The facility was designed around the cases that general practice finds hardest to accommodate:
- Children, including those under four. There is no minimum age.
- Patients with special needs, including intellectual disability, autism and non-verbal patients, for whom chairside treatment is not realistic.
- Severely anxious patients, including those who have avoided dental care for years.
- Patients with a strong gag reflex, where even routine restorative work is impractical awake.
- Extensive treatment plans, where four hours in one sitting is better for the patient than eight separate appointments.
- Patients up to a BMI of 50.
Cases expected to exceed five and a half hours are reviewed by the anaesthetist before booking.
How a list runs
ASDS operates Monday to Saturday, 7am to 7pm. A Saturday list is popular with practices that cannot close their books mid-week, and the extended hours mean a full day's treatment can be completed without spilling into a second date.
The anaesthetic is provided by Sleep Dentistry Services, our anaesthetist partner, who bring their own team and equipment to every list, complete the pre-operative medical clearance, and manage the patient's recovery alongside our nursing staff.
You can bring your own instruments and your own dental assistant and hire the facility alone, or we can supply the assistant, the instruments and the materials. Both arrangements are common.
What the patient pays
A dental GA patient receives three separate invoices, and it is worth setting this out plainly at the consultation:
| Charged by | Medicare | |
|---|---|---|
| Dental treatment fee | Your clinic | Not claimable |
| Facility fee | ASDS | Not claimable |
| Anaesthetic fee | Sleep Dentistry Services | Partly claimable |
The ASDS facility fee is charged hourly, in whole-hour increments, with a specialist loading for patients under 13 and patients with additional needs. No GST applies, and there is no hospital admission fee, which is the single largest cost difference between a dental day surgery and a private hospital theatre. Our current rate card is available on request.
The anaesthetic fee is set and billed by Sleep Dentistry Services, who calculate each patient's expected Medicare rebate individually and provide an upfront figure, an approximate rebate and an estimated out-of-pocket. Because the rebate depends on actual procedure time and the patient's Medicare position, those figures carry an approximate range rather than being fixed.
Dental and facility fees are payable at least one week before the surgery date.
Booking a patient
For a first booking there are two steps. Your reception completes the patient booking form on the patient's behalf, covering their details, medical history and Medicare information. Sleep Dentistry Services then calculates the fees and rebate, completes the medical clearance, and emails the estimate to both the patient and your clinic. Separately, your clinic returns a completed facility hire agreement.
Once you are set up, subsequent patients need only the booking form.
Come and look
The theatre, recovery suite and sterilisation area are all open to visiting dentists, and we would rather you saw them before you brought a patient. There is also a short video tour at https://youtu.be/6ZOAfiyrDL0.
Advanced Sleep Dental Solutions, 664 Mountain Hwy, Bayswater VIC 3153. Phone 03 9069 3103, email team@advancedsleepdental.com.au.
