In The Media


Video Transcript:

Chuck:

Alright welcome back to the Central Valley Buzz everybody I’m your host Chuck Leonard. Sitting here with me now, good old friend of The Buzz Dr. Art Mirelez. What’s going on brother?

Dr. Mirelez:

What’s going on?

Chuck:

Good. Haven’t seen you in a while but you know what I have seen? You’re busy!

Dr. Mirelez:

Yes.

Chuck:

You’ve been busy!

Dr. Mirelez:

Yeah I’m busy, I’m busy. Doing good things, doing good things.

Dental Wellness relates to Overall Wellness

Chuck:

Art has the Mirelez Wellness Dental center located right across the street from Bullard High School. You’ve been doing some great things over there, I know a lot of people have gone to and I just hear all the time what a great work you do. Tell people what you do.

Dr. Mirelez:

You know the Mirelez Wellness Dental center is focused on just getting people healthy and well. You know we really focus on the entire body and how it’s affected by poor oral health. And so, so yeah we’re doing, you know everything that we can do to get somebody healthy.

Chuck:

I wish you’d just take a second to talk about that, because what you’re saying is, dental health is overall body health and how does that work?

Dr. Mirelez:

It really is. I mean more and more studies are showing that the health of your mouth is related to the health of your body and so for instance if you’re diabetic, and you have poor oral health, your diabetes will have a tendency to be out of whack. You get the, the mouth under control, there are studies that show that it’s not a direct link but there’s an affiliation.

Chuck:

Does it work the other way too, if your diabetes is out of whack then your mouth is maybe out of whack too?

Dr. Mirelez:

Exactly.

Chuck:

Really? Wow. What others kinds of things?

Dr. Mirelez:

Heart conditions, arthritis.

Chuck:

I’ve heard that about the heart.

Dr. Mirelez:

Heart conditions, arthritis, one that you may be familiar with is erectile dysfunction.

Chuck:

Really?

Dr. Mirelez:

Yes

Chuck:

I’m, not, not yet but how does that work?

Dr. Mirelez:

Yes the studies show of you have if you have gum disease, it can cause problems down below for men.

Chuck:

No kidding.

Dr. Mirelez:

Yeah, yeah, so, so get it, get in and get cleaned up and get healthy. Yeah that’s what we’re about.

OnCall Dental Urgent Care for the greater Fresno area

Chuck:

You’ve been doing this for many years anything like I said I know you’ve been busy. When you called me up you said hey Chuck I got this new thing I was like, wow, how come no one ever thought of that before? Tell him what your idea is, what you’re doing.

Dr. Mirelez:

So what we’re doing is, I started noticing on Monday mornings we were busy as it is and then we were even busier with dental emergencies. You know whether it was an accident or whether they were in the hospital for 6, 8 hours because their face was swollen and they needed an extraction or they needed, they needed treatment. So these poor people were sitting in the hospitals, are sitting at urgent care all weekend long, they can’t do anything, so they give them a prescription, or they give them painkillers, antibiotics maybe and then they say hey you know, Chuck go see your dentist on Monday. Here’s a thousand-dollar bill yeah go see your go see your dentist on Monday, so they’re not rendering treatment. And so this concept is that we are going to be available 24/7. It’s called OnCall Dental and Urgent Care here in Fresno. We’re available 24/7, we are open seven days a week. We’re open till 8 pm at night and we’re open on Saturdays and Sundays.

Chuck:

And emergency calls right?

Dr. Mirelez:

And emergency calls. So if it’s an urgent need you could call us at three in the morning, somebody will answer the phone and we will take care of you.

Chuck:

I have a friend of mine recently that could have used this, as they smacked their mouth at two or three o’clock in the morning tripping over something in the dark, smacked their mouth, breaks their tooth off and has to wait, gosh, I’m thinking before it was all done I think it took her a week or so to get in to see somebody.

Dr. Mirelez:

So we are open when other dentist offices doors are closed, that’s essentially the idea. And so we just opened last week and it’s going great, it’s going great and so it’s a new concept in dentistry. It’s, it’s definitely politically incorrect but we’re here to serve the community.

Chuck:

What kind of work are you going to be doing doc?

Dr. Mirelez:

You know we do all services actually. So it is an urgent care center but we’re also finding that people that have jobs, they don’t want to leave work, right, because they don’t get paid while they’re not working, to go see their dentist and incur a dental bill. And so what we also do is we’re seeing just regular patients that want cleanings, fillings, I mean just the basic dentistry. And it’s convenient because we’re open till eight o’clock at night during the week and then we’re open Saturdays and Sundays also.

Chuck:

Are you running this out of your existing office?

Dr. Mirelez:

So it’s right next door to my office. So the quality of care is going to be exactly the same, all the materials, all the people are essentially the same, we’ve added a few to help accommodate. I do have a couple doctors helping me, they’re awesome doctors, and so between all three of us we’re gonna be taking care of people. Yeah so it’s pretty exciting.

Chuck:

You just do regular dentistry also right?

Dr. Mirelez:

Well we do regular dentistry but we also do cosmetic dentistry for the patients. You know, there’s two reasons why people don’t go to the dentist. One is fear, you know anybody that’s afraid of the dentist? Yeah okay. So one is fear, so we provide sedation dentistry, so we’ll sedate our patients, we’ll be able to do their entire mouth if they please in one appointment. The other reason is convenience, right? Not wanting to go the dentist for whatever reason because their school, their work doesn’t want to let them go. The other thing is just economics. And so in our office, we have a variety of payment, financial options, to allow me to make dentistry more affordable.

Chuck:

Because, because some of the some of the insurance doesn’t cover the cosmetic stuff?

Dr. Mirelez:

I don’t like to call it insurance. It’s a big it’s a big it’s a big misnomer.

Chuck:

What do you call it?

Dr. Mirelez:

I call it, it’s, it’s there to assist you right? Because insurance, the definition of insurance, if you have a catastrophic event, they’re going to cover it you know with a small deductible. It’s not how dentistry works, you know with dentistry it’s there more to assist you. Most dental insurance plans are going to give you about a thousand dollars per year okay, so anything above and beyond a thousand dollars, it’s going to be out of pocket. And so I always tell patients that it’s it’s not really an insurance, it’s more there, it’s a benefit, it’s there to assist you, it’s a crutch, exactly and so but we have we have various payment options to help people, you know get the dentistry that they that they deserve.

Chuck:

You know I think this urgent care is gonna go over a huge I think it’s just a great idea and probably something that’s behind times, like it should have happened a long time.

Dr. Mirelez:

Really I mean you see all these medical urgent cares popping up all over the place, and why is that? It’s because it’s convenient, you can walk in, you know you’re going to be seen right away you don’t have to make an appointment you’re going to get taken care of. And so having a dental Urgent Care is just, like why didn’t anybody think of that before?

Chuck:

It’s so good to see you. Thank you. I appreciate thank you for helping out the people in the Central Valley for sure for sure you do. Yeah. This is Dr. Art Mirelez and remember I told you he’s a good friend of The Buzz. If you need any dentistry done please get a hold of him and when you see him tell him you saw him right here on The Buzz. we’re going to take off of the day you guys go out and be the best Fresnoan you can and support your local businesses like Dr. Art Mirelez and support your local artists. I’m Chuck Leonard and I’ll catch you tomorrow.