How to Choose a Dentist [8 TIPS]

Whether you just moved to a new city or you are unhappy with your old dentist, finding a new dentist can be a little bit of work. The good news is that if you do your homework, you can end up choosing a great dentist that will do a great job and you can build a relationship with so that you feel more comfortable each time you come in to see them. Keep reading as the expert dentist Carrollton TX shares with you how to choose a dentist.

Make a list

The first thing that you need to do is to make a list. This will allow you to see exactly who is available, who is an option, and who you want to end up learning more about. Make sure you leave some space in between each dental practice so that you can write notes about each practice. If you end up not liking something about a dental practice, you can end up just crossing it off and not bother to end up learning more about the practice.

Location

You don’t want to end up driving an hour each way just to see the dentist? Probably not. That is why it’s a good idea to look at the location. Choose a place that is near where you live or near where your work office is. This means you are able to get there quickly and on time. An appointment already lasts nearly one hour, you don’t want to end up wasting a lot of your day in the car when you could just be jumping in a quick car ride to get to your dental appointment.

Read reviews online

The next tip and one of the most important are to head online and look at the reviews. You can search through their Facebook page, look on Google, and even look on Yelp. You will be able to see what others have said about dental practice in the past. Make sure to actually read the reviews and don’t just look at the overall rating. This will help you to know what people liked about the dental practice and what they didn’t. You can take notes on your sheet about each.

Ask friends or family members

If you have a friend or family member in the area, you can ask them who they have been seeing. This will help you to have a trusted person give you advice. If they had a bad experience with a specific dental practice, they can also share that at this time so you know which dental practice to avoid.

Insurance

Do you have dental insurance? If you do, you want to ensure the dental practice takes your insurance. The worst situation would be if you were to get dental work done and realize you now will have to pay for it out of pocket when you didn’t need to. This means that you should head to the dental practices website and see if they list the insurances they accept. You should also call ahead of time and verify that they will be accepting your insurance. If the company does not, you should scratch them off your list. If you don’t have insurance, make sure that you ask if they have any discounts for paying out of pocket as well as what dental plans they provide patients with.

What they offer

If you have a specific procedure coming up, it may be a good idea to see if the dentist is able to provide you with that surgery too. That is why you should call ahead of time and ask exactly what they provide. If they don’t provide it, you will need to go through all of these tips again to find a trustworthy dentist to help you with your specific needs.

Call and ask questions

It’s important that you feel completely comfortable with the dentist you are utilizing. That is why you should call ahead of time and ask questions. You can write them down to ensure you ask each practice the same ones and write down their answers so that you don’t get confused from one dental practice to the next. Remember that no question is a stupid question. You will feel so much better when you ask these important questions and it will clear up anything you are unsure about with that specific dental practice.

Make sure to also ask about hours when you are asking questions. Although this should be listed on the website if your work has different and specific hours you won’t want to choose a dental practice that isn’t available when you are. Also, ask when their next appointment available is. If you have not had your teeth cleaned in a while, you don’t want to choose a company with a long waiting list.

Do a walk through the dental practice

The final tip is to call and take a walk through of the dental practice. This will give you a great overall feel for the practice to see if it is one that you want to work with. Make sure to trust your gut instinct while doing this and see how friendly the staff are without being pushy.

As you can see, there are a lot of different ways and things you need to do in order to choose your dentist correctly. If you do this background research, you will be able to better find the dentist you should be working with. If you just choose the first dentist you find or hear about you may end up regretting that. We hope you the best of luck with finding a dentist that works for you!