About Our Practice
Welcome To Petoskey Pediatric Dentistry
At Petoskey Pediatric Dentistry, our mission is to provide safe, compassionate, and high-quality pediatric oral health care. Our vision is to serve as a dental home for children which continuously guides them toward oral health self-management. We are both a primary and specialty care office, and we care for infants and children through early adolescence, including those with special health care needs.
Sedation Options
In the office, we offer nitrous oxide and/or oral sedation for eligible patients.
For more extensive sedation, we provide treatment under general anesthesia in the operating room at 2 of our local hospitals: McLaren Northern Michigan Hospital in Petoskey, and Munson Healthcare Otsego Memorial Hospital in Gaylord.
Individualized Care
We operate a low-volume practice (with only three operatories) focused on individualized care. We see fewer patients in one week than many pediatric dental practices see in one day. This allows us plenty of time to spend with each patient ensuring their visit proceeds at an efficient yet comfortable pace. This model also allows us to devote time to addressing any questions or concerns their parents or guardians may have during the visit.
When a child is scheduled for dental treatment, no other children are scheduled at that time. This is uncommon to find in a dental office, but we consider it essential to providing the best treatment experience possible. In most offices, the doctor will have to leave a patient one or more times during a treatment visit to check another patient that the dental hygienist is seeing at the same time, for example.
Independent Provider
We are an independent provider with all dental insurance companies. This allows us to provide a high level of personalized care to our patients using quality dental equipment and well-trained team members who love working with children. When a dental office chooses to be an independent provider, some dental insurance companies will then choose to send payment directly to the subscriber (family) rather than the provider (dentist). This is the reason we require families insured by those companies to pay all fees at the time of service.
In Our Practice
We recommend all children to have their first dental visit by their first tooth or first birthday (whichever occurs first) in accordance with American American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry guidelines.
We are enrolling new patients age 7 years or younger at the time of their first visit. We transition patients to a general dentistry practice by the time they turn 13 years old.
We allow one adult (age 18 years or older) to accompany a patient to the clinical area. All other adults and children must remain in our family area. All children (under 18 years old) must be accompanied by an adult (age 18 years or older) in our family area. No children (under 18 years old) may remain in our family area without an adult (age 18 years or older).
We allow a 10-minute window for late arrivals. All patients arriving over 10 minutes past their scheduled appointment time must reschedule.
Board-Certified Specialist
In 2015, Dr. Stieber voluntarily completed a multi-step written and oral examination process to become a Diplomate of the American Board of Pediatric Dentistry, also known as a “board-certified pediatric dentist.”
In 2022, she voluntarily became a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry by maintaining an active membership with the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry and Michigan Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, involving herself in organized dentistry, completing the scholarly activity, and pursuing community involvement.
Since 2014, Dr. Stieber has held a pediatric dentistry specialty license in the state of Michigan.
This licensure, training, and certification distinguishes her from a general dentist who, for example, is licensed to treat children but not a specialist.