Dr. Stone is a specialist in tooth replacement, a Prosthodontist, and has been placing dental implants surgically since 1991.
Choosing a dentist is never easy, and when you’re looking to find a dental specialist to do specific procedures, the search can become even more difficult. If you’re planning to get crowns, veneers or dental implants, you’ll have to find a good prosthodontist in your area. But why do you need to find a prosthodontist, specifically? And how do you go about finding the best prosthodontist for the job?
Why Choose a Prosthodontist?
Regular dentists are versatile professionals. Your regular dentist may be able to perform procedures a prosthodontist can, and sometimes at a lower price. So why do patients bother seeing prosthodontists for work regular dentists can do just as well? Why not just save the money a qualified prosthodontist will charge you extra?
Well, the answer is simple.
Prosthodontists undergo specialized training in their field. While there are plenty of wonderfully talented regular dentists who might excel at performing prosthodontic procedures – like the placement of dental implants, crowns, veneers and fitting dentures – regular dentists don’t complete specialized training in performing these procedures, so you’ll never know where your regular dentist’s strengths and weaknesses are.
One regular dentist might be particularly good at placing crowns, but not at dental implant work. Another might excel in placing veneers, but struggle with placing crowns that fit perfectly. It’s easy to think that all dentists are equally good at performing any dental procedure, but in reality it’s not uncommon for dentists to be better in certain areas than others.
The best way to know where a dentist’s strengths and weaknesses are is to ask them directly about the work they do most often, or where they consider themselves more skilled. If, however, you visit a dental specialist to perform work that lines up with his or her specialty, you’ll already know what areas your dentist is more skilled in.
Prosthodontists specialize in dental work with dental prosthetics, meaning your prosthodontist can help you with anything from implants and crowns to veneers and dentures. When choosing a dentist to perform prosthodontic work, it’s important that you choose wisely. Your teeth are vital to your health and quality of life, and unfortunately chasing a bargain on dental work can have terrible consequences. The health of your teeth is priceless, and it’s always better to be safe rather than sorry.
Finding a Fort Lauderdale Prosthodontist
Now that you know why it’s important to choose the right specialist for every kind of dental procedure you need done, it’s time to focus on how you’ll find a prosthodontist in your area.
One of the best ways to find professionals these days is with a simple online search. If you simply do a search for prosthodontists in Fort Lauderdale, you’re sure to come up with a few results. But even when looking at dental specialists you choose wisely. There are a few things you can look at when choosing your dentist from a list of search results.
Reviews
Most dentists will have reviews available online. Read through all the reviews you can find and make a choice based on what you see. Remember, no matter how good a dentist is, you might find one or two bad reviews, so just pay special attention to see whether or not you think the person complaining seems reasonable with the issues they brought up.
Also take a look at how the dental practice handles complaints. Sometimes there’s a reasonable explanation from the practice’s side that clearly shows that the person complaining is actually the one who’s at fault. The thing to keep in mind when you face negative reviews is that there are two sides to a story, so one or two negative reviews doesn’t mean the dentist is bad, especially if the reviews address different problems.
Complimentary Consultation
There’s really only so much you can learn from a dentist by reading online reviews. While reviews can bring up red flags, it’s hard to choose a dentist based only on what people wrote. To get a feel for whether or not you feel comfortable with a prosthodontist, it’s good if you can get a complimentary consultation. This helps to make the experience of choosing someone more personal. You should be able to feel like you trust your prosthodontist, and while trust isn’t an exact science, your gut feeling will often be right.
At Dr. Stone’s practice, we offer complimentary consultations to new patients who are on the lookout for a prosthodontist. We believe this helps to make the process of finding a prosthodontist easier by offering you a chance to get to know your dentist before committing to have dental work performed.
