A dentist (not office staff) should offer multiple written treatment options for a specific diagnosis and include benefits/risks, time and costs.  This video on Good vs. Bad Dentistry. Part 6. Treatment Planning was performed in our Smile Makeover office.

Hi this is Dr. Jeff Dorfman at The Center for Special Dentistry in New York talking about 12 ways people can differentiate good from bad dentists and good from bad dentistry. A good dentist needs to be intelligent, but they don’t need to be an Ivy League grad. What they do need, is they need to be able to put together all the pieces of the puzzle, like a chess grand master, and take all the information together, and be able to give patients multiple treatment options for a specific type of problem. There is not one size fits all. They should be able to say, “This is an overall diagnosis, now what is it, patient, that you want to do about this diagnosis?” And with that information, they should be able to give you two, three, four, five different treatment choices, or treatment plans, for that given problem. They should be able to give you written fee estimates, time action calendars (how long it’s going to take). They need to be able to give you benefits and risks of all of the above, and all of this really needs to be done by the dentist, it should really not be done by a dentist’s staff person, who is not a dentist, because they don’t have the education, nor do they have the state licensure, to be offering dental advice without a dental license. So be aware of that.