About the practice
A four-chair
practice on
Halstead Row.
Dr. Priya Raghunathan bought this practice in 2014 from the dentist she had been working under since 2009. Most of what changed after that was administrative: how a plan gets written down, how a price gets quoted, and how long you wait to hear back.
Why it runs this way
We stopped quoting treatment out loud.
In 2015 we counted how many patients called back within a week asking what, exactly, we had told them they needed. It was roughly one in three. So we stopped saying it and started printing it: tooth number, surface, finding, price, insurance estimate, and what happens if you wait.
That sheet is now the whole method. It takes the front desk about eight extra minutes per patient, and it has cut the callbacks to almost none.
Four chairs · 12 Halstead Row · Fenmore
The dentists
Two people do the dentistry.
You will be assigned to one of them and you will keep seeing that one, unless something urgent comes up on a day they are not in.
Owner · General and restorative
Dr. Priya Raghunathan, DDS
University of Minnesota School of Dentistry, 2007. Two years in a group practice in Duluth, then Fenmore from 2009, and owner here since 2014.
Most days she is doing crowns, fillings and new-patient exams, four days a week. She places implants on Tuesdays and Thursdays only, because the planning and the surgical setup take the room out of rotation for a full morning.
She keeps a hand-drawn chart on the wall of operatory two tracking how many patients guessed their own tooth number correctly at recall. The current run is 61 out of 140.
Minnesota licence · ADA and Minnesota Dental Association member
Associate · General and endodontics
Dr. Tomas Lindqvist, DDS
Trained at Marquette, then six years in a large multi-site group in the Twin Cities before joining Roanlight in 2021, mostly because he wanted to stop being handed a schedule built by someone who had never met the patients.
He carries most of the root canals and the same-week emergency slots, and he sees the majority of our teenage patients. He is in Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
He talks through the whole procedure while he works, whether or not you asked. Several patients have asked him to stop. He has not stopped.
Minnesota licence · Swedish and English
Everyone else
The people you actually deal with.
In practice you will spend more minutes with these three than with either dentist. Here is what each of them is for.
Treatment coordinator
Marisol Vega
Marisol writes your estimate and calls your insurer. If you want to know what a crown will actually cost you after Delta Dental has had its say, she is the person who knows, and she will tell you the number before you book. She also splits large plans into stages so you can do the urgent half now and the rest in the new benefit year.
Ask her about: cost, insurance, payment plans, membership
Hygienist
Dana Whitlock, RDH
Dana does most of the cleanings and takes most of the gum measurements, so she is usually the first person to notice a pocket getting deeper. She keeps the same patients visit after visit on purpose. If you want to know what the numbers she calls out mean, ask her mid-appointment; she would rather explain them than repeat them.
Ask her about: bleeding gums, sensitivity, brushing, pockets
Front desk
Bev Trandahl
Bev answers the phone, holds the emergency slots and decides who gets them. She is the reason we can usually find a chair the same day for something acute: she leaves two openings every weekday morning empty and defends them. If you need to move an appointment, call her rather than emailing.
Ask her about: booking, rescheduling, records, parking
How we differ, honestly
Including the parts we do not do.
A small practice cannot be good at everything. It can be clear about which things it is not doing, which is cheaper for you than finding out halfway through.
We do
Price the plan before we start it
Written, itemised by tooth, with your insurance already applied and the guesses marked as guesses. If the number changes once we are in the tooth, we stop and tell you before we carry on.
We do
Keep the same hygienist on you
Not a scheduling nicety. Gum measurements only mean something compared with last time, and comparison is easier when the same person took both readings the same way.
We do not
Orthodontics or jaw surgery on site
No braces, no clear-aligner cases run in-house, no wisdom teeth that are impacted or sitting on the nerve, and no orthognathic surgery. Those go to Dr. Halloran's orthodontic practice on Weller Street or to the oral surgery group in Coon Rapids, and we send the scan and the chart ahead so you are not asked for the same history twice. We stay involved for the restorative work afterwards.
We also do not
Sell whitening at the desk
We do whitening if you ask for it, after we have shown you the shade you are likely to land on against your own teeth. Nobody here is prompted to bring it up during a cleaning, and no one's pay depends on it.
What it costs to be a patient here
Membership from $29 a month.
For patients without dental insurance. Two cleanings and exams a year, the X-rays that go with them, one emergency visit, and a set discount on everything else. No annual maximum, because there is nobody to bill.
Marisol can quote your household in about five minutes
Insurance we are in network with
Out-of-network plans are welcome too; we file the claim for you and tell you up front roughly what your plan is likely to leave you paying. If we are not sure, we say we are not sure rather than quoting you a number we cannot stand behind.
Book a visit
New patients, this week.
Call the desk and Marisol will find you a slot, or send the form and we will call you back the same working day.
Opening hours
Where we are
12 Halstead Row
Fenmore, Minnesota 55418
Two blocks off the Halstead strip. Free surface parking behind the building; Route 14 stops at the door.