Dr. Claire Kim

Prosthodontics is the specialty of restoring and replacing teeth — the crowns, bridges, dentures, and implant restorations that rebuild a bite — and of planning the order in which complex mouths are fixed. Where a general dentist treats the everyday case, a prosthodontist is trained for the mouth where many things are wrong at once: worn dentition, failing old work, missing teeth, a bite that no longer meets properly.

At Tribeca Dental Studio, prosthodontic planning starts with the end in mind. The bite is analyzed, the final tooth positions are designed — digitally, with 3D imaging and smile design where appearance matters — and treatment is sequenced backward from that design: foundation first, then structure, then the visible finish. That sequencing is the difference between a rehabilitation that holds together and a series of unrelated repairs.

The specialty works hand in glove with the rest of the building. Implants are placed with the periodontist, gum contours are shaped before final crowns, orthodontics can reposition teeth so restorations can be more conservative. Because everyone practices under one roof and one chart, Dr. Claire Kim can plan the whole case with the colleagues who will perform each part of it.

Prosthodontics is also where materials and craft matter most. A crown is a manufactured object that has to survive years of chewing forces in a wet, warm, moving environment — fit, material choice, and laboratory work decide whether it disappears into your bite or announces itself at every meal. The studio's restorations are built to be forgotten by the person wearing them.

The specialty's quiet discipline is load management. Every tooth in a healthy bite shares the work of chewing; lose teeth or wear them down and the survivors carry double shifts — which is why they crack, loosen, and wear faster in a pattern dentists call the restorative death spiral. Prosthodontic planning breaks that spiral deliberately: it redistributes force across teeth, restorations, and implants so no single one is asked to do a job that will destroy it.

Cosmetic success gets the photographs; load management is what makes the photographs still true in fifteen years.

Design before drilling. Complex restorations are prototyped — in digital design and, where useful, in provisional restorations you actually wear — so shape, bite, and appearance are proven before the final work is made. Surprises belong in the planning phase, not in the finished crown.

Conserve what is sound. A prosthodontic plan distinguishes teeth that can carry a restoration for decades from teeth that cannot, and spends effort accordingly. Keeping a healthy natural tooth almost always beats replacing it; rebuilding everything is rarely the right answer.

Function is the aesthetic. A beautiful restoration that chips, aches, or overloads its neighbors has failed at its real job. Bite forces are analyzed and balanced as part of the design, so the result is quiet in your mouth — no thinking about it at meals, no tenderness by evening.

Tribeca Dental Studio was built so patients are not referred across town. General dentists, a periodontist, prosthodontists, orthodontists, and pediatric specialists practice in the same building, and pediatric care has its own full-floor office, Tribeca Dental Studio 4 Kids. When a case needs two kinds of expertise, the doctors plan it together around one chart — and the hygienists, assistants, and coordinators who know your history are part of that conversation.

That structure matters most in ordinary moments: a hygienist who spots a cracked filling can walk the finding to the doctor the same day; an orthodontic plan can account for the implant a patient will need afterward. Your records, images, and timeline stay in one place, with people who know your name.

Continuity is the quiet benefit of that structure. Your chart at the studio holds your images, your measurements, your treatment history, and — just as important — the plans that were discussed and deferred, with the reasons. When you return in six months or six years, whichever clinician you see is reading the same record, not starting from your memory of what was said.

The recall system watches the calendar so a maintenance interval does not silently become a lapse, and when treatment spans the adult and pediatric floors of the practice, the records travel with the family instead of being reconstructed from scratch.

Diagnosis before treatment is a rule here, not a slogan. Every plan begins from records — digital images, photographs, and measurements entered in the chart — and the patient sees the same images the doctor is reading. Findings are explained in plain language, options are presented with their honest trade-offs, and no irreversible treatment is scheduled on a first visit unless it is a genuine emergency and you have consented to exactly what will happen.

If you want a second opinion, including from an outside practice, you will be given your records without an argument; a confident diagnosis survives scrutiny.

The unglamorous systems run daily and are audited like clinical work: instruments are sterilized in monitored cycles, single-use items are used once, treatment rooms are turned over under a written protocol, and the imaging equipment is maintained on schedule. None of this is visible from the chair, which is precisely why it is standardized — safety that depends on someone remembering is not safety.

If you ever want to know how something is sterilized or why a step is done, ask; the team would rather explain the system than be trusted blindly.

Money is handled with the same plainness. Before treatment begins you receive the cost in writing, your insurance coverage is verified in advance where insurance applies, and if findings during treatment change the plan, the change — and its cost — is explained before the work is done, not presented afterward. There is no version of care at this studio where the bill is the first place you learn something.

Questions about an estimate are answered by the people who wrote it, and 'let me think about it' is always an acceptable answer that changes nothing about how you are treated.