How to find the Best Dentist

March 24, 2015, Baseline Dental Practice

Friends and family that live far away are always burdened with the question, "How do I find a really good dentist near me?"

For years I have explained the best way to find a dentist is by first asking your friends. While this idea seemed like a surefire way to find a great dentist, I soon learned that people have no idea what good dental work is like. This could be for many reasons like, maybe the friend has never needed dental work done. Another possibility is that maybe your friend has a very low bar in what they consider quality dentistry.

I soon moved on to my second theory which was just looking up their Yelp reviews. Yelp is a really refutable company. I then learned this also was a bad idea as many reviews were misleading and were heavily weighted by only the doctors favorite patients or their worst patients. Both types of reviews skew the results heavily for a profession that isn't reviewed much on Yelp.

Lastly, I came to my best idea and I let the office speak for themselves. A good dental office will always take time to clean your teeth. They are interested in your health and have set their prices so that they don't have to be rushed. The minimum time for a regular adult cleaning appointment would be 30 minutes. Anything less is way too rushed and is probably a terrible dentist. The higher over 30 minute mark the better. Around 50 minutes would be the best. If they take time to clean your teeth they take time to care about you. At our dental office we schedule about an hour and our hygienists do a thorough job.

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