8 Simple Steps to Find the Right Dentist (Dr. Boulden)

Here are some helpful hints, or steps, to finding the right dentist for you or your family.

Step number one, simply do your homework. Spend a lot of time with this decision because it's quite an important one. That may be on the Internet. That may be asking friends and family. Spend lots of time finding the right person, if it fits your idea of what a good dentist may be. Whether it's the office, the way they keep the office, the way they treat you on the phone, everyone has their personality differences and that may take a lot of due diligence on your part to find that person.

Number two, if you're doing a lot of research on the Internet, make sure you just don't go with the first one that you click on. There is, obviously, in a city like Atlanta or any other big metropolitan area, there's plenty of options. Some of the best ones might not be on the first page, so take some time, dive in to six, eight dentists, and narrow down your focus. You'll learn a lot just from their Web pages, their reviews, etc.

Number three, yup, reviews. Reviews are important, especially the ones that are authentic. And I say that because you have to be leery of some that don't look authentic out there. Bona fide sites like Yelp and Google, they spend a lot of time basically filtering through those to make sure that they're getting the ones that aren't real or patients that haven't been visited because, unfortunately, those can be manipulated. So spend some time looking at what other peoples' experience was and read, actually, the bad ones as well because sometimes the bad ones are really just from something that may not be applicable to you or maybe someone that just hasn't been happy across the board. Like, for instance, sometimes you'll see someone who, in their profile, a Yelp profile for instance, you'll see someone that, all they've done is gone in and everywhere they've gone, whether it's a restaurant, or a dentist or a doctor, or a car wash, everything's been bad. So you may want to put those kind of reviews aside. But, again, just like my other two advice before this one, is just take some time and kind of do your due diligence on filtering out good reviews from bad.

Number four, check the credentials of the dentist in which you were seeking. Dentists should be spending lots of time with their continuing education after dental school, more so than what the state demands. A lot of times, dentists that are passionate about their craft are doing continuing education almost every weekend. So find someone who kind of brags about the fact that they have a lot of continuing education, that they love dentistry, that they love learning more about dentistry.

Number five, compare prices. The old adage is true: sometimes you get what you pay for. But once you've narrowed the practice down to a couple that you like, it may be worth your while to call up and ask for a couple comparison costs so that you can weigh which works out best for you and your family, and your insurance.

Number six, look for new technology in the office. An office that usually has technology throughout is pretty proud of what they have. They're investing back into their business, investing back into their patient base, investing in the new tools and techniques of dentistry. So in a high-tech office, usually it means that they are very committed to the advancements of dentistry.

Number seven, ask for samples of their work. I bet you didn't know that you could actually buy clip art and cases online for dentistry, meaning dentists can buy cases that actually weren't theirs, that they could put in a portfolio book. Make sure to ask for that dentist's work. So if you're interested in cosmetics, ask for work. If you're interested in Invisalign, ask to see their before-and-afters.

Number eight, interview more than one dentist. So if you're having a procedure done that's going to be pretty complex, whether it's implant dentistry, extractions, cosmetic dentistry, maybe even Invisalign, it may behoove you to interview more than one dentist. Because of the fact that the personality differences, the office being comfortable or not comfortable, like I said, it may be worth your while to spend some time with at least a couple dentists, if not three.