How to Choose Your Dentist in 4 Easy Steps

It takes more than just flossing your teeth every morning or brushing them every evening to maintain good dental health. You have to visit a dentist every six months for a dental check-up to prevent any dental infections ordiseases.

While visiting a dentist for a one-off appointment can work for you, it’s always best to have a trusted dentist who you can call in times of emergencies. Here are four tips to help you make the best choice.

1. Professional qualifications

Every dentist should be able to tell you about their dentist’s training.

You can obtain a dentist’s professional qualifications from your local dental society or from most insurance carriers. If the dentist is part of a specialty organization, they will also have a list of their members and all their qualifications.

Apart from the dentist, the staff is also an important part of your dentist’s office.

Is the staff answering your questions? Are you comfortable with how they’re treating their customers (you)? Every business needs to have a level of courtesy for all its customers. If you’re not comfortable with any of the professional aspects of any dentist’s office, they may not be the best choice for you.

2. Emergency care availability

Dental emergencies can happen in the blink of an eye. You could have an accident while working out or a fall in your house could result in a dental injury.

In all these cases, you need to have a dentist who you can call at a moment’s notice, and they should help you.

Before choosing a dentist, you should first inquire about their policy on emergency dental care. In particular, know their policy on normal working hours, on weekends and at night. A good dentist should be able to help you on all working hours if it’s an emergency and have a favorable policy for both weekends and night hours.

3. Their location is key

Most of us don’t work in the same places where we live. Should you choose a dentist who is closer to your home or choose one who is closer to your workplace? These answers are subjective, but most people tend to pick dentists who are closer to their homes especially when they are choosing a family dentist.

As such, you need to choose a central location that is easily accessible from both work and home. Keep in mind that you should only choose a dentist based on their location after they’ve passed the previous two filters.

4. Finances are key

Finances are a key determinant of many choices in our lives.

If you rely heavily on your insurance plan to handle your dental care, you must find a dentist that accepts your insurance. If they do accept insurance, you must find out if there are extra charges for you to cough up and how much they amount to.

If insurance is out of the question, it’s good to know how much each dental procedure costs. It’s pointless to choose a dentist and then realize that though you need dental services, you cannot afford them.

In addition to the cost of their services, it’s also wise to know what payment options they accept. Choose a dentist who accepts multiple payment forms (credit cards, payment plans, personal checks, cash,etc.), since you don’t know what will be the most favorable option when you need dental services.

Conclusion

The success of your decision largely depends on how you learn about the dentists you vet. If you were referred to them by a friend or family member, you can ask them some few questions and see if they give satisfactory answers.

If you don’t get any referrals from your inner circle, there is another option. Most dentists are members of local or national dental networks. If you know some good dental networks in your area, the best place to start is by checking out some of their members. Most of the work is already done for you since they will list their office hours, their qualifications, their locations and other important details.

The best thing about this method is that the network’s moderator(s) always vet their members. So you have some form of assurance that you’re choosing from the best dentists in your area. For a start, you can check out the Mexico Dental Network. If you need any dental work in Mexico, they are the best network to use, since they have multiple reputable dental clinics as their members.

There are many other dental networks. Start with a Google search of your area’s dental network and then start vetting some of its members.