The short answer: call a few specialists in your new town, an endodontist, a periodontist and an orthodontist, and ask which general dentists they see themselves or send patients back to. If you keep hearing the same few names, that is a good place to start.
Moving means finding a new everything, and a dentist is one of the hardest to choose. Reviews are worth reading, but they tell you about one person’s experience: whether they felt welcome and well cared for. That matters. The quality of the dentistry itself is much harder to judge from the outside. Here is the test I would use if I were new in town.
Ask the specialists
Call a few offices of each of three kinds of specialist:
- An endodontist, who does root canals
- A periodontist, who treats the gums and bone around the teeth
- An orthodontist, who straightens teeth
Ask the front desk, not the doctor: who do they see for their own general dentistry, or who do they recommend? The front desk knows, and the doctor is usually with a patient.
Don’t draw the circle too tight. Call offices across your part of town, not just the nearest few. Plenty of people are willing to drive a little further to see someone good.
What you are looking for is overlap. If the same two or three offices keep coming up from different specialists, start there.
Why this works
Specialists see our work. Not every referral arrives the same way. Some offices send X-rays, a clear diagnosis and a good treatment plan with the patient; others send very little. The specialist sees the difference firsthand, from many offices, week after week, so they know who does the work well and who plans it well.
Then see for yourself
Once you have a name or two, a good first visit tells you a lot:
- Did they look at your whole mouth, not just the tooth that brought you in?
- Did they explain what they found, with photos or X-rays you could see?
- Did you understand why each recommendation was made, and what could wait?
That is how we run a first visit here. Here is ours, step by step.
Bring your records
Before you move, ask your current dentist for a copy of your X-rays and records. They are easier to get while you are still a patient there. If your old dentist has since retired or closed, here is how to track them down.
Where to start
New to Las Vegas? Call us at 702-734-0776 or schedule online. And if you ask the specialists around town first, we would be glad to hear what they said.
General education, and not a substitute for an exam.