DENVER — Ridgeview Dental announced this week that it will begin offering Saturday and Sunday appointments at its three Denver-metro locations starting next month, making it the first general-dentistry practice in the Denver-Aurora corridor to do so.
The move is a response to rising demand from working patients who cannot get time off during standard business hours, practice manager Elaine Whitfield said in an interview. Appointments will be available from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on both weekend days, with a rotating staffing schedule so no single hygienist works more than a five-day week. Ridgeview Dental
Whitfield said the practice studied appointment-no-show data from the past 18 months and found that roughly a quarter of cancellations came from patients whose employers had declined to accommodate weekday dental visits. Weekend availability, she said, was the single biggest lever the practice could pull to close that gap.
The expanded hours will be backed by online self-booking, which the practice rolled out earlier this year. Patients can confirm insurance eligibility, upload intake forms, and rebook within a three-month window without calling the office. The system has reduced front-desk phone volume by nearly forty percent since launch, according to the practice's internal data, and has freed two full-time staff to focus on same-day emergency triage.
Independent practices in the region have been slow to offer weekend care for a mix of labor and reimbursement reasons. Most commercial dental plans pay the same rate regardless of the day of the week, which means the practice absorbs the incremental payroll cost. Whitfield declined to share the expected annual cost of the expansion but said it was modeled as break-even in year two based on new-patient acquisition alone.
The practice's clinical director, Dr. Marcus Ruan, said the team was prepared to adjust hours again if weekend demand did not match projections. He added that the weekend slots would not replace any weekday capacity; the change is additive. Ruan also said the practice had negotiated with two of its largest specialty referral partners, an oral surgeon and an orthodontist, to align Saturday availability, so a patient needing a consult after a weekend appointment would not wait until Monday.
For patients with pediatric needs, the practice confirmed that weekend hours would include at least one hygienist trained in pediatric care at every location, though not every doctor on the schedule will see children. Families are encouraged to flag pediatric bookings at the time of scheduling so the front desk can match them with an appropriate provider.
Ridgeview Dental has operated in the Denver market since 2008 and employs 34 staff across its three offices in Lakewood, Aurora, and Highlands Ranch. The practice plans to evaluate weekend demand over a six-month trial window before deciding whether to make the change permanent or expand it further. A fourth location in Thornton, currently in build-out, is scheduled to open in the fall and will launch with weekend hours from day one.
Residents in the Denver-Aurora corridor who are interested in weekend appointments can review availability and book directly through the practice's website. New patients are asked to allocate an extra 20 minutes to the first visit for paperwork and imaging.