First Visits

Years of Expertise & Reliable Care 

Dr. Jesse is a pediatric dentist and has been doing tongue and lip tie releases for nearly a decade. A few years ago, he branched off from pediatric dentistry and chose to dedicate his entire practice to tongue and lip tie release. Now our doctors are one of only about 5 providers in the country who are specializing to this level.

Tongue & Lip Tie Release Appointment

What to Expect for Babies and Children

Your baby’s initial exam appointment is about 1 hour long. This gives us plenty of time to explain everything, answer all questions, and perform a thorough exam. If you and your doctor have decided to move forward with your child’s tongue or lip tie release, we can do it at that same appointment if you wish. There is no obligation, but you have that option. We can offer same-day procedures because we use a technology called a ‘cold CO2 laser’. It’s extremely quick, easy, painless and only takes about 30 seconds to do the actual procedure.

What to Expect for Adults

Unlike ties in babies, adult tongue and lip ties require myo-functional therapy before a release can be performed. This is sort of like physical therapy for the tongue because the tongue muscle in adults is so thick and tight, it needs to be loosened in order for your doctor to get a complete release. Because myofunctional therapy will be needed, we can provide our services in one of two ways. 

  1. We can give you the name and phone number of a myofunctional therapist near you (or one who can provide services virtually) so you can receive therapy before coming to us. Most myofunctional therapists can diagnose whether a surgical release will be needed or not. They will work with you on stretching the tongue muscle so that you only require one visit to Colorado Tongue Tie; we can do both the exam and procedure on the same day, and your appointment will take approximately 1.5 hours. In the end, this saves our patients time and expense. 
  2. Alternatively, we can schedule you for an initial consult to determine if you have ‘tethered oral tissue’ (a tongue tie). This appointment will take approximately 1 hour. During this appointment, we will get a clear understanding of your case, perform a thorough exam, and answer all of your questions. If diagnosed, your doctor will then refer you to a myofunctional therapist to work on the stretching of the muscle for a few weeks.

Once myofunctional therapy is completed, we’ll schedule your second appointment (approximately 50 minutes). At this appointment, we will perform the frenuloplasty (release procedure) which takes about 15-30 minutes. We use a technology called a ‘cold CO2 laser’. For adults and adolescents, we provide sutures to help ensure there is no reattachment in the future.

Fees

For babies under 12 months of age fees are $75 for the exam and $700 for the release. For patients that are 1- 4 years or age the fee is $75 for the exam and $900 for the release. For adults, our fees are $150 for the exam and $1500 for the frenuloplasty since it's a more complicated procedure.  Commonly, in order to get the full function we are looking for, we need to do both a tongue and lip tie release. You will not be charged multiple times if we perform both a tongue and lip tie release. We charge only a single fee to make sure we achieve full functionality.

Insurance

To better serve our patients, we print out the dental and/or medical claim forms with the procedure codes pre-filled, and show you how to fill out a few questions at the top of the form. As we are out of network for all providers. You are then responsible for mailing your claim forms in for reimbursement. 


Our policy is that the patient pays us for treatment the day it is received, and patients seek reimbursement from their insurance company. We find that 85-90% of patients using dental insurance get reimbursed. The success rate with medical insurance is not as high because of significant “Out of Network” medical deductibles that need to be met (usually at least $1000 under typical medical policies). The claim is still worth submitting as some patients have a lower than normal “Out of Network” deductible and do see reimbursement through their medical policy.