We believe Singaporeans should know how to pick a dentist to ensure good dental health decades from today.
If you don’t already have a regular dentist, consider these five most important factors:
- Relationship
- Convenience
- Skill
- Equipment
- Subsidies
Relationship
Do you get along with your new dentist and the dental team?
The whole team matters.
These people will play an important role in your dental care, and you will benefit from building a relationship with them.
A noticeable amount of dentistry relies on an onboarding process that involves X-rays and also knowing the history of the dental procedures you have undertaken.
Abandoning a relationship with a dentist translates to a lot of unknowns that need to be uncovered with your next dentist.
Since you might have to entrust the dentist to a complicated procedure in the future, trust becomes very important. Some areas that we actively try to improve upon are:
- Responsiveness to patients who contact us
- Taking time to understand your preferences
- Understanding why a smile is important to you, and how to improve it.
We are very result oriented and we want to ensure we deliver the results that was promised. See our Google Reviews.
Convenience
More common initial issues like dental decay and early gum disease have no pain until it is at the advanced stage. At that stage, complex treatment like root canal or extraction may be the most judicious solution to the problem.
Regular visits to the dentist every four to six months can help me to prevent disease progress to the later stage where more complex and more expensive treatment is necessary.
For Singaporeans, removing this barrier to entry becomes a question of how much effort and time you’ll need to visit the dentist. There are two points to consider:
- Is the clinic near my home or workplace?
- Are they open on the weekends?
At Gentle Smile Dental Studio, we service customers on Saturday for Singaporeans who can’t get to us during the work week.
At the same time, we are also located in Millenia Walk, which makes it easy for people working in town to visit us.
Skill
The whole dental team matters and when it comes to your teeth, the two key roles are the dentist and the hygienist.
An oral health hygienist focuses on preventive dentistry such as:
- Scaling, polishing
- Root planing
- Gum maintenance
- Caries prevention to prevent decay
In Singapore, all dentists carrying the title “Dental Surgeon”, “Dentist” or “General Dental Practitioner” must be registered with the authorities. Qualifying dentists must be trained locally or a graduate from one of the 89 universities overseas. Dentists tend to focus on:
- Restoring teeth with fillings, crowns or surgery
- Improving quality of life with aesthetics
Our founder, Dr. Kelvin Chua, had many years of experience at a large aesthetic clinic and is also an international lecturer who has spoken on aesthetic, laser and digital dentistry in Malaysia, Cambodia, South Korea and Singapore.
Equipment
Not all dental clinics use the same equipment, and this can affect your comfort and experience.
For example, a more traditional way of getting a dental impression is to use a mushy, clay-like material that gets moulded in your mouth. However, a modern dental scanner allows a dentist to wave a wand to get a 3D view of your teeth.
Gentle Smile Dental Studio uses these equipment:
- iTero intraoral scanner
- Panoramic X-rays
- CBCT (3D Dental X-ray)
- Invisalign Virtual Care
Subsidies
For budget conscious Singaporeans, the most affordable way to see a dentist is through the polyclinic system as you can enjoy subsidies. The other option is to visit a private clinic that accepts your CHAS card subsidies.
Gentle Smile Dental Studio is a fully private clinic and our patients tend to have insurance that covers their visits, which our concierge can bill directly. With us, you are guaranteed to have control over your appointments and being a boutique dental clinic, you could be treated by the same dentist.
Gentle Smile Dental Studio is a fully private clinic and some of our patients have insurance that covers their visits. We have experience with dealing with insurance like Cigna, Allianz, Raffles Insurance and several others.
With us, you are guaranteed to have control over your appointments and being a boutique dental clinic, you could be treated by the same dentist.
