by Blake Herzog, photos by Blushing Cactus Photography
Dr. Anson Hooper, 38, has built his Prescott dental practice on a reputation for personalized care that lowers the barriers between patients and their caregivers. Patients say his and his staff’s professionalism and friendliness offer an “everybody’s hometown dentist” vibe, while offering same-day service with many replacement options thanks to his CEREC scanner, mill and 3D printer. He says that with patients, “I try to be a relatable person and not just somebody that puts their hands in your mouth.”
Born and raised in Texas, by parents originally from Northern Arizona, he grew up outdoors working on their ranch. After earning his bachelor’s degree in biology from Dixie State University he went on to get his DDS from Baylor College of Dentistry. After working at Vallejo Dental in Dewey, he became the fifth dentist, in 2021, to open a practice at 802 Schemmer Dr., in Prescott.
Dr. Hooper lives in Prescott Valley with his wife and two daughters.
Prescott LIVING: Our interview for this Men of Vision issue is with Dr. Anson Hooper, and we’re sitting in his office at Hooper Family Dental in Prescott. Let’s start with a little about where you grew up and went to school.
Dr. Anson Hooper: I grew up in South Texas, on a ranch just outside of Kingsville, down near Corpus Christi. I was born in Texas, we moved down to that ranch full-time when I was starting high school.
I didn’t spend much time inside, there was always work to do and animals to take care of outside. I think that helped me appreciate the value of getting an education. I decided pretty early that I wanted to do something other than ranching full time, even though I really miss it.
I went to college up in St. George, Utah, and was there for about four years, before heading off to dental school in Dallas, Texas, at Baylor. We were there for four years also.
Prescott LIVING: How did you get interested in dentistry?
Anson: I decided pretty early in my college education that I wanted to do something in medicine. The biological sciences were super intriguing to me. My father-in-law is a retired dentist, he retired before Laura and I were married. He’s the one that kind of helped steer me toward dentistry. He knew that having a family was super important to my wife and me.
Dentistry offers a wonderful family life. As dentists we work primarily 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. We don’t have a lot of emergencies that bring us in outside of office hours in the middle of the night. Obviously, we have our share of emergencies, but nothing like an emergency room sees. It kind of yielded to a lifestyle that was a little more family friendly than some other fields within medicine.
Prescott LIVING: How did you and your wife meet?
Anson: Neither of us were attending college at the time, but we worked for a home security company in Utah, and we met at a work get-together. They had a big party around the holidays and mutual friends introduced us.
Prescott LIVING: And what brought you to Prescott?
Anson: My parents are both from Arizona, so I have extended family here. My brothers moved to Arizona while I was in dental school. So, we knew after dental school that we were probably going to come out this way, because it’s nice to be close to family, especially when you’re raising kids.
We wanted to raise our daughters somewhere a little bit smaller than the Phoenix area. I interviewed for a couple of different positions up here and took the one that was the right fit for me, Vallejo Dental in Dewey, which is why we live in Prescott Valley.
Our family was already settled in Prescott Valley, so when we bought this office over here in Prescott in March of 2021, we decided it was an easy commute and to continue being part of the Prescott Valley community also.
Prescott LIVING: How big is your staff here?
Anson: We have a couple of assistants, a few hygienists and a few office staff, so there are eight or nine of us. It took a little while to get there, but we have a really, really amazing team now. We put value and emphasis on the patient experience and want our patients to feel at home here. Going to the dentist isn’t always the most comfortable way to spend our time.
Most people feel that way about a dental office, so we try to create an environment where patients can let their guard down a little bit. So, lots of laughing and joking around and giving each other a hard time. We keep it professional, but are also pretty light-hearted most of the time.
Prescott LIVING: How has your practice grown over the last six years?
Anson: 2021 was during/right after the COVID years. As dentists, we were shut down for a few months. We couldn’t see patients except on an emergency basis. I think there were a lot of dentists during that time period that decided to sell their practice because things were so unpredictable. Business was rather slow when I bought it.
We stay fairly busy now, but our goal isn’t just to get people in and get people out. We try to create a relationship with our patients, so we take the time.
We are also focused on staying up with the modern advancements in dentistry. We do a lot of 3D printing, same-day crowns and walk-in treatments. We are able to take care of a lot of lab work in the office because we don’t have much in the way of a dental lab in Prescott. We have a lab that helps us with some denture work, from time to time, but this technology helps us avoid shipping most of our lab work back and forth to the Phoenix area to be completed. We try to do everything we can to make it a convenient visit for our patients.
Prescott LIVING: Where does the 3D printing come in?
Anson: We can 3D-print a lot of dental models and appliances. We’re able to take a three-dimensional scan of the patient’s mouth and print out replicas (models) of their teeth. (Picks up a model of a person’s entire mouth.) For this patient, essentially we had to extract this tooth, and we were able to make him a temporary tooth for that space. All of this was 3D-printed; we’re also able to print clear aligners, flippers, retainers and night guards.
With this technology, we’re able to avoid putting all that goop in people’s mouths to make the model, we can instead take pictures of their mouth and then produce different appliances from those images.
We also print surgical guides to help with implant placement. It gives us greater accuracy and alignment in order to place an implant in a precise location.
Prescott LIVING: Wow, how long have you had that technology?
Anson: It’s been around in the field of dentistry for several years, but we have been using it for about a year and a half now. We’re able to take a ceramic block and the milling machine cuts a crown out of it using the data that we capture from the camera.
Prescott LIVING: That’s impressive. Even with all that, it sounds like it’s been important for you to keep the practice small, a solo practice.
Anson: Yeah, that goes back to how I was raised and brought up. I don’t have any desire to bring another dentist on. I want to keep it a smaller place that people feel comfortable coming to. That’s what I feel most comfortable with when I see a physician. I don’t have any desire to have it grow to a large scale operation. Obviously, it will grow in certain ways, but as far as having a big practice with four or five different dentists, that’s not for me.
Prescott LIVING: Why wouldn’t you want to go to a bigger office?
Anson: I think sometimes people can get lost in the shuffle of a production-focused office. Individuals can become just another number, just another whatever the procedure is, rather than an individual. I enjoy getting to know all my patients. I could tell you multiple things about all of them because I care about them. I think sometimes when things grow too much or you’re too busy, you don’t get that one-on-one care that I would want.
Prescott, I think, is about that small-town feel. That’s one of the things I love most about this area. By having a smaller office, I’m able to be part of the community in a way that contributes to “everybody’s hometown.” We love it. And we love Prescott Valley; there’s nothing not to love. It’s an extremely family-friendly community. I talk to people all day, every day, and this community is full of phenomenal people.
Prescott LIVING: Do you do much cosmetic dentistry, or is it mostly general dentistry?
Anson: I have a passion for the cosmetic side of dentistry. I probably do more than many general dentists, but I like the variety that comes with treating a little bit of everything. That’s why I perform root canals, place implants, and I do cosmetic stuff, I do extractions, fillings, crowns and dentures. I do a little bit of everything.
I like doing lab work and things like that too, but we also work with some great labs on cosmetic cases. It just depends on the case. We do cosmetic stuff as far as same-day crowns and veneers, and can achieve really great results.
Prescott LIVING: And do you see patients of all ages?
Anson: Yes. We see kids and have a couple of patients over 100 years old.
Prescott LIVING: What is it that you love about dealing with your patients?
Anson: They’re definitely the best part of the job, just getting to know them. Seeing them is the best part of my day. We have some great patients from all walks of life. We were talking about ages, but the same is true of socioeconomic status. We have great patients from every walk of life.
Prescott LIVING: Are there trends you’re seeing as far as what people either need or want to have done?
Anson: I would say more patients are increasingly interested in esthetics, not just in the way of having veneers done, but orthodontic treatment also, trying to align their teeth to make their smile more functional and esthetic. They want to go through braces or clear aligners in order to make their occlusion more functional. Treatment that can lead to less grinding and opening the airway.
We do quite a few sleep apnea appliances for patients who can’t tolerate a CPAP as well as they would like, these mouthpieces can help position the jaw forward to open the airway at night.
Unfortunately, people Google everything. That can give some good information but can also lead to false information.
People can post whatever they want or write articles about whatever they want.
Maybe the information superhighway has driven people to look at more of these options than they used to.
There has been a lot of research within the last few years of the correlation between gum disease and systemic health. Gum disease and heart disease and Alzheimer’s are another huge topic of discussion. Published research has determined a correlation and found that gum disease was a leading factor.
Everything that we consume comes in through our mouth, enters our body after passing through our mouth, all the bacteria in our mouth contaminates the food we eat and bacteria enters the blood stream from there. When we don’t have a clean oral environment, and we’re not seeing a dentist regularly to help maintain things, oral health can negatively affect other areas in our body.
Preventative dentistry, coming in for maintenance, coming in for hygiene on a regular basis, really has more of a systemic medical effect than we once thought because it can contribute to so many other things. I have dental hygienists that help with that, and they’re great at what they do. We try to focus on preventative dentistry and not just reactive. We don’t want patients to just come in when they are in pain with a broken tooth.
Prescott LIVING: Outside of dentistry, what does life look like for you and your family?
Anson: My wife and girls, obviously, take up a lot of my evenings, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m biased, but they’re amazing. (Pointing to a large family portrait hung above his desk.) Now, that picture’s a couple of years old. Sadie’s 12 now and Millie is 10. And then my beautiful wife is Laura; we’ve been married for 15 years. She helps out here in the office quite a bit.
We have 10 acres on the north side of Prescott Valley, so I spend a lot of time upkeeping and maintaining that, but I enjoy doing it. I love hunting and fishing. I love the outdoors, anything that takes me outdoors. I love to golf, so I golf quite a bit. I play in tournaments with my brothers. We try to get in one tournament a month, but it doesn’t always happen.
My daughters like to play sports and do things outside, so we do a lot of that stuff. I’m helping coach my oldest daughter’s softball team this year.
We enjoy traveling and seeing different places. We go up to Durango/Telluride, Colorado, once or twice a year. We really like that area because of the outdoors. We do all kinds of hikes and stuff up there.
My parents now have a ranch out on the Arizona and New Mexico border by Alpine, in the White Mountains. We go over there and see them once or twice a month. It’s a four- to five-hour drive. If we can take a long weekend, we like to go there. We’re grateful to have them pretty close.
Prescott LIVING: Are your brothers all still here in Arizona?
Anson: Yes. They’re in Queen Creek, Casa Grande and Payson. My identical twin brother is a dentist in Payson.
Prescott LIVING: Oh, really? It sounds like maybe you took different paths into dentistry.
Anson: He went to nursing school while I was in undergrad, so he was a year behind me in dental school. His wife is from a really small town, as were we. They wanted to be somewhere smaller than Prescott. They bought a house in Chino Valley and he worked with a dentist here in Prescott for about a year, then they decided they wanted to be somewhere smaller.
Prescott LIVING: What are some of your plans for the future, either professionally or personally?
Anson: I’d like to be more involved in some of the community dental events. I’ve gone to the Arizona Mission of Mercy down in Phoenix a couple of different times to help out, but just starting the practice has taken so much time.
Now that everything’s pretty comfortable here, I’d like to be involved in more of that. I know that they do community clinics up here with a couple of the churches in town. I’d like to help out with some more of those things locally.
As the girls get older I’ll continue to be involved in their activities and athletic teams, just supporting them however I can. I really enjoy spending time with my family and supporting the organizations they are a part of.
Prescott LIVING: And do you see yourself and your family staying in Prescott for a while?
Anson: Oh, yeah. We’ll be here until I retire for sure, probably after that. We absolutely love the area. It suits our family so well. I don’t see leaving even after that. I plan on practicing here for another 30 years as a dentist.
My reputation and patient relationships mean a lot to me, and building lasting ones with a community that I care about is toward the top of my list. So, we plan on being here for a long time.
