How to find a good dentist near you.

Your relationship with your dentist can be a deeply personal one. In opening your mouth, you are opening the gateway to your personal hygiene history in a way usually only shared with trusted partners!

So you want a good connection both in the technical services they offer, as well as their personal manner, and how well a visit to their clinic fits in with your lifestyle.

Here are some factors to look out for in choosing a new dentist:

1. Ask friends and family for word-of-mouth advice.

Asking around to see who people like as their dentist can reveal plenty about which dentists give what kind of experience, and who can be trusted with which services.

Ask people who are in a similar stage of life to yourself. Similar age, similar incomes, and similar ages of children, since what they need in a dentist might be similar to what you need.

So ask why they choose them. The reasons they choose one dentist over another might be exactly what you are looking for; perhaps they also have a self-conscious teenage daughter who needs braces and reassurance and has found a soothing dentist who excels at exactly that. Other reasons might be irrelevant to you. Choose what matters.

2. Research online for good reviews and reputation.

In asking around, you can get a good sample of the opinion of each dentist straight from the horse’s mouth – people who have been there.

You can also look up reviews on Google or Facebook – perhaps some community groups – to get a sense of what people say about the clinics you have in mind. For example, you can find here the best dentists in Australia.

You will want to know whether the office was warm and inviting with friendly staff, or if the practice was more concerned with providing the bare minimum of service.

You could ask about their quoting and billing practice, whether upfront or after the job. A red flag is if they seem overly concerned with money without seeing it reflected in the quality of facilities.

Do they keep the place clean and hygienic? How new is the equipment?

Each visitor with a dentist who has both joined Smilo.ai is prompted for a review, which makes reading the reputation much more accurate.

3. Check their website for their experience

The length of time a person has been in practice can be a deciding factor. On the one hand, you take a chance on someone new to the profession, but they may have graduated recently with up-to-date techniques.

Someone with many, many years of experience might have years of skills, but be a bit long-in-the-tooth as it were, and sticks to tried and true methods from the ages.

Finding someone with years of experience in exactly the field you are looking for, and who keeps up to date with new techniques, is gold.

Speaking of gold…

4. Pricing

We all have our budgets. As great as it would be to be able to afford the most highly renowned specialist in the land, this is often not within reach. Cost is a factor.

Sometimes dentists will state the prices of each process on their site, but if they haven’t met you before, they really can’t know what they may need to do for you. You also won’t know yet if these procedures are absolutely vital, or just a fastidious dentist insisting on getting your smile perfect.

You can use Smilo.ai to quickly search through various dentists, and assess their price ranges. You can also send your new dentist your Smilo.ai records and photos, they could see what they need to do ahead of time, and may let you know the cost before you walk in.

5. Qualifications and credentials

Not everyone who opens up as a dentist needs to be accredited. To earn their accreditation, dentists need to adhere to the six minimum standards of practice and register with the Australian Dental Association.

Girl smiling holding phone

This is quite often on display in their clinic, and available when you look them up on the dental registry, where you can also check there for how long they have been practicing with a clean record with no suspensions.

for these qualifications first, then search based on location and other matters.

You might also like to see if the dentist you have in mind has undergone extra training, either in new methods or in specialist areas. You can also look up any of these further qualifications to make sure they can do what you will need.

You might need a good general dentist for the family, for example, but also need a specialist in orthodontics for young Michael’s wayward teeth. In this case, you can make sure that the dentist nearby has exactly those qualifications.

To save time in searching and filtering, instead of searching each dentistry, Smilo.ai allows you to filter

These are just a few ways that Smilo.ai makes your dental health easier to manage, more effective, and cheaper. Read more about it and download the app.

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