I had a preliminary examination and routine cleaning after a year since my last cleaning.
I will strive to be as objective as I can, while keeping in mind I have an ultimately biased opinion:
THE GOOD:
The staff is very friendly and personable. I felt at ease the entire visit, and every step of the way was met with smiles and engaging conversation.
THE BAD (in order of increasing seriousness):
-A few items of equipment need some maintenance: the x-ray machine was slipping, and caused the hygienist to have problems taking the x-rays. Their portable camera was also not working properly.
-Hygienist was very up-selly on their new teeth whitening offering. My teeth are not pristine-colored, but they are not notably discolored either. It is my understanding that any teeth whitening procedure, no matter how advanced, weakens the teeth. For the record, I do not resent upselling. But when it is being done at the expense of my health, I take offense. We are supposed to place our health in the hands of these professionals, and if the dollar is more important to them, we need to go somewhere else.
-Both hygienist and dentist were very messy with my cleaning. I've never been to another dental office where "Close" (ie vacuum up saliva and excess rinse water) was not done every 10-20 seconds during the cleaning. At this office, both the calcium scraping by the dentist and the polishing by the hygienist had exactly one instance of clearing up the water and mess with the vacuum. The remainder of the time, the splash and garbage was allowed to spray all over my face (I have facial hair, so it was being actively absorbed). And their remedy? To wipe the liquid around with the already-saturate towel on my chest. This was thoroughly unpleasant. I have never been in a cleaning experience like that.
-The dentist recommended I purchase some gum-healing mouth wash and use it. Rinse once a day, etc. At checkout, that turned into two bottles, rinsing twice a day. Of course, this means I need to buy a second bottle. I opted to ignore that recommendation, buy the one bottle, and call it a day.
-The dentist was rather careless about the amount of scraping being done at my gum line, causing a lot of agitation and bleeding (much of the blood making its way to my face, as I outlined earlier). Now, I've had "deep cleanings" done before because of significant gum recession. I'm no stranger to gum bleeding. But according to this doctor, my gum levels were fine. So I'm not sure which is inaccurate: are my gum levels low, or are you just incredibly rough with the gum line?
Now all of this is bad. At this point I would have rated this office a 2/3 star. But the tipping point and why I felt it necessary to submit my experience into a review is this:
THE UGLY
-The dentist recommended I have 8 sealants filled (not covered by insurance)
-The dentist also recommended I have a filling done on a back molar, and a chip on my front tooth filled (covered by insurance).
She informed me that the chip in my front tooth will, quote "Be twice as big next year." She did not explain further on the back molar filling required. I assumed it was a cavity.
So because of my poor experience up to this point, I resolved to go to another clinic to have this evaluation checked and have the work done there.
***The dentist disagreed on both counts***
Her evaluation was a filling on the front tooth was both unnecessary and very likely to fall out easily because of how small it is. The chip had no indication of being in danger of increasing in size, and because of my bite, had a low chance of having any problems caused because of it.
She also informed me the spot of the molar filling ***already had a filling in place and it was fully intact with no work required.***
They sent me on my way.
TL;DR
My experience leads me to believe that in addition to being relatively unpleasant to get cleanings completed, Advanced Smile Center prioritizes selling procedures over caring for the health and best interest of the patient.
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