This month Dr. Chuan Wang will open her Studio Blu Dental practice at 3590 Rte. 9W in Highland.

Dr. Wang was born and raised in China but her family emigrated to the United States when she was 12 and lived in New York City. She graduated dental school from Columbia University and did her general practice residency at Montefiore Medical Center.

She first worked for a practice in Latham, NY, near Albany but eventually settled in Highland after meeting her husband Devin Britton on line. Together they have two children.

Wang was about to sign a lease at the Bridgeview Plaza but at the last minute decided to locate in Brad Scott’s building on Rte. 9W. A consulting firm designed her office with plenty of windows to ensure sufficient sunlight.

“In many private practices you don’t see windows; they are kind of like dungeons and the environment is not inviting at all,” she said.

Wang is in the process of hiring staff to handle the main desk and to take care of all insurance issues and paperwork. She expects to bring on a dental hygienist in a few months.

Wang does cleanings, fillings, extractions, root canal therapy, crowns and whitenings and in the future she expects to expand her services to include implants. She has also devised several wellness plans for adults and children as well as a perio maintenance plan. All plans are aimed at maintaining dental health while providing affordable payment options.

Devin has his own local business, Bad Seed hard cider, but has been helping his wife to get her office up and running.

“Being a start-up is like any business; we’ll have 90% of it done and then there are a number of little things,” he said, noting that it took 10 weeks just for the cabinets to arrive.

Dr. Wang is expecting to be open for three, 12 hour days a week.

“That would be Monday through Wednesday and alternating the next week, Wednesday through Friday,” she said.

The couple believe the business will do well in Highland.

“The demographics for the area are very promising because it shows a lot of people moving in,” Devin said. He does not expect there will be much competition with other area dental practices, “because right now there are more people in the area than what they can handle. You’re seeing booking hygiene patients three months out.”

Dr. Wang tries to put people at ease when they come in, by supplying sunglasses and noise-canceling headphones to lessen the drill sound and has worked hard to make her practice feel more like a spa than a dental office.

“We’re non-judgmental here. We probably will not ask them if they’ve been flossing. We’re here to help them and not really here to preach. We just educate them and tell them what they need but there is no pressure on whether to proceed with a treatment or not because we’re here just to help,” she said. “Whatever they want, we will try to make things easy for them in terms of scheduling and in terms of the experience here.”

The couple said naming the practice Studio Blu Dental, “was because of our daughter, who is four now, really likes Rio and the main character was Blu. We liked the idea of including Studio because that is more like dental arts.” Rio is a 3D computer animated musical adventure comedy movie and the main character Blu is a domesticated Macaw.

Wang said she is also partnering with the Mid Hudson Hospital as a way to give back to the community.

“For every new patient that we see, we are sponsoring iPad stations at its brand new pediatric wing [and] that’s why for the first 100 new patients, we are giving away Philips Sonicare protective clean electronic toothbrushes,” she said.

Dr. Wang and Studio Blu Dental can be reached at 845-393-4122.