Dental Hygienist

Job Details

Department:
Dental Clinic
FTE: 0.6 (48 hours per pay period)
Workdays:
Wednesday, Thursday & Friday
Shift(s):
Days
Shift Length: 8 hours
Sign-On Bonus: $5,000
* * Sign on bonus is available for eligible external candidates (current employees, contract/temporary workers, and former employees returning to HHS within one year are ineligible).

Under general supervision, performs work of moderate difficulty in performing clinical hygiene procedures.

• Performs complete prophylaxis including scaling, root planning, soft tissue curettage and polishing of fillings.
• Perform mechanical polishing to clinical crowns not including instrumentation.
• Removal of calculus by instrumentation must be done by the dentist or dental hygienist before mechanical polishing.
• Performs preliminary charting of the oral cavity and surrounding structures to include case histories, perform initial and periodic examinations and assessments to determine periodontal status, and formulate a dental hygiene treatment plan in coordination with the dentist’s treatment plan.
• Performs procedures such as dietary and salivary analysis and prepares smears.
• May remove and change periodontal packs.
• Advises patient on proper diet and dental care.
• Charts patient treatments.
• Counsels patient and family on dental care and treatments.
• Instructs patient in oral hygiene techniques.
• Prepares, cleans, and maintains instruments and equipment.
• Takes and develops x-rays; performs fluoride applications.
• Maintains supplies.
• Prepares and maintains records.
• Make referrals to dentists, physicians, and other practitioners in consultation with a dentist.
• Replacement, cementation, and adjustment of intact temporary restorations extraorally and intraorally.
• Re-cement intact temporary restorations and place temporary fillings (not including temporization of inlays, onlays, crowns and bridges) to provide palliative treatment.
• Remove excess cement from inlays, crowns, bridges and orthodontic appliances with hand instrumentation only.
• Apply topical medications such as, but not limited to, topical fluoride, bleaching agents, and cavity varnishes in appropriate dosages or quantities as prescribed by a dentist.
• Take impressions for casts and appropriate bite registration.
• Remove sutures.
• Facilitate scheduling patients for operating room procedures as needed.
• Arrange insurance and payment options for patients and refer patients to the proper social service avenue.
• Assess and monitor patient’s blood pressure and use a glucometer to test glucose levels.
• Triage phone encounters for patient care.
• Administer and monitor nitrous oxide inhalation analgesia.
• Administer local anesthesia.
• Perform oral screening/assessment and preventative services at off‑site locations as directed.
• Etch appropriate enamel surfaces, application and adjustment of pit and fissure sealants.
• Restorative Expanded Functions.
• Restorative procedures limited to: placing, contouring, and adjusting amalgam restorations, glass ionomers, and supragingival composite restorations (class I & V) and adapting and cementing stainless steel crowns.
• Other duties as assigned, but only when trained to do so.

• Graduation from a school for dental hygienists approved by Council on Dental Education of the American Dental Association.

• Have collaborative Management Agreement in place.
• Prior experience working in a community clinic.

• Dental Hygienist must have completed a course on nitrous oxide inhalation analgesia.
• Dental Hygienist must have completed course on sealant placement.
• Dental Hygienist must have completed course on administration of local anesthesia.

• Possession of a valid license as a dental hygienist issued by the State of Minnesota.
• Basic Life Support.