[ryandrake]

My experience with "dentists these days" matches yours. I go in for a checkup, and instead I'm getting sales pitches for mouth guards and alignment thinggys, and electric toothbrushes and all sorts of obviously high-margin dental accessories. And then there's the "well we usually recommend quarterly visits, but will accept twice a year" when I explicitly tell them my insurance only allows one visit a year. I basically say no to everything, and they try to guilt trip me into a bunch of optional procedures for a half an hour. Finally, eventually, they grudgingly clean my teeth.

It's like a shady auto mechanic for people who don't know anything about cars. You go in for an oil change, and they of course identify all sorts of optional repairs, making them sound super scary. "I'm not saying this small oil pan gasket leak will leave you by the side of the road, but you don't want to get behind on preventative maintenance!" Same tactic.

The icing on the cake is when, fast forward a few months, my insurance company sends me notice that they won't cover the visit because the dentist wrote the work up as "orthodontic prep" instead of "standard cleaning" so I need to contact them to get it corrected... and on and on...

I remember when you could go to the dentist, get a cleaning, be out of there in 45 minutes and be down about $100.

[saryant]

There are some dentists out there that are still like this.

Last fall I finally went in for a cleaning after several years of putting it off. At one point I asked the dentist about teeth whitening and he told me that they can do it, but the over-the-counter whitening strips work fine and I should save my money.

Refreshing to hear an answer like that.

[vostrocity]

There are plenty of good dentists, and the internet has made it much easier to compare. Not sure if there's a well-reputed review site for healthcare professionals, but Yelp has worked well for me.

[Grishnakh]

>My experience with "dentists these days" matches yours. I go in for a checkup, and instead I'm getting sales pitches for mouth guards and alignment thinggys, and electric toothbrushes and all sorts of obviously high-margin dental accessories.

I'm going to agree and disagree with this one.

I went a few times to a "dental spa" a couple years ago which was trying to sell me a "night guard" for $900, claiming I was grinding my teeth at night. Their prices for other stuff were pretty high too.

My current dentist pushed me hard to get an electric toothbrush, either from her office or elsewhere. They even gave me a sample brushhead and let me try it out in their office, using some purple pills to show how much cleaner the electric toothbrush made my teeth. Her price actually wasn't that bad compared to Target/Walmart, but I ended up getting a nice Oral-B on Amazon on Black Friday. Guess what? The dentist was right! Now my teeth constantly feel like I just got a polishing at the dentist. I got another Oral-B for my wife on Amazon (it was only $30-35), and she loves it.

Seriously, get an electric toothbrush; it makes a huge difference. You don't need to waste time getting a full polishing when you use one of these daily.

But as for the night guard, my current dentist hasn't tried to sell me one of those. And they recommend twice-a-year visits, which is what my insurance pays for.

It sounds like you need to find a new dentist.