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Review content:
I went to the Quincy, MA branch of Gentle Dental in July 2011, shortly after moving back to MA from MI. Previously, I received dental care from a dentist who was a friend of the family in Ann Arbor, MI. When I moved from MI, I had no issues with my teeth, and had been in for check ups and cleanings every six months (and x-rays at regular intervals) during the six years that I lived in MI. In short, I had received good, solid care from a respect local dentist and friend of the family with no inclination to lie to me for profit.
Now, onto my Gentle Dental appointment...
I went in to get a routine check up and cleaning, taking advantage of a very attractive introductory patient offer. I can't remember the price, but it was a very good price.
They took Xrays and did an excellent cleaning (the hygienist really did quite a nice job). Then I met the dentist, a very cranky young woman who told me that I had three cavities that absolutely required immediate attention. I told her that this was quite surprising given my previous dental care record. When I asked her to show me the fillings on the x-rays, she became quite irritated. Of course, I am not trained to see such things, but she could still try to show me, as other dentists had done in the past. I asked her if there was any chance of the cavities ""remineralizing"" and if they could simply be put on watch. She again replied that all three were too far gone and would require immediate treatment. The cost for this was something like 500-600 dollars.
Still, suspicious, I had the receptionist send my x-rays to my old dentist in Ann Arbor. She looked them over the same day that they were received and called me back. From a visual inspection, she could see no indication of any cavities!
I called the Quincy dentist back, and told her what my other dentist said. Her defense was that some cavities could not be seen in x-rays and could only be found by doing the manual probing, or stick test, or whatever they call it. Fine, I didn't want to argue more, and I did get a good cleaning (thank you to the excellent hygienist!), so I let it go. I did NOT however agree to get any filling work done.
Fast forward to 2012. I now live in Sweden where we have state health care. the dentists here do not rely on what I will call ""over-treatment"" to generate revenue. I went into the dentist and had x-rays, cleaning, and a check up. The results? NO CAVITIES. And this is six months after my Quincy Gentle Dental appointment.
My conclusion? Gentle Dental has a business model: draw the customer in with a cheap intro rate, and then scare the patient into future treatments that are both unnecessary and expensive to both make up for what they lost on the intro rate and to generate additional revenue.
The lesson - be very very very very careful when selecting a dentist - they may possibly be even more corrupt than doctors. And do NOT follow the advice of any dentist at Quincy, MA Gentle Dental unless you want to have healthy teeth drilled away. Maybe there are good dentists there, but I wouldn't risk it again.
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