Clear Choice Dental Implants, Marketing Hype or Quality Care?

I must agree with the majority of the posted answers, Dr Kazemi below hit it right on the head .  This Implant "supercenter" is geared towards making large amounts of money to recoup the millions of dollars they spend on marketing.  The doctors that work at these centers are paid a percentage of each case they perform. They have no vested interest in the patient.  Patients are overcharged for the All On Four procedure (which is essentially the only treatment they offer, even if your teeth are healthy) They convince the patient that all of their teeth are infected and they need to come, making the patient now a dental cripple.  If you have already lost a large amount of bone or have been in denturees for a long period of time, All on Four is a good option, but it is not the only option for all pts.  That is like saying that because you have one blocked artery in your heart, you need a heart transplant when you only need a one vessel angioplasty.  Totally unethical.  As mentioned before once you get pulled into one of these centers you get bombarded by a bunch of sales people, it is truly the proverbial used car salesman routine.  You dont see a doctor until the day of surgery.  Beware of corporate dental establishments. They will call you on a daily basis after your "free consultaion" and brow beat you into returning for treatment if you didn't make a deposit on the day of your consultation

I have talked to many patients who have been to one of the Clear Choice centers and also two doctors that briefly worked for them. Here is what the patients have told me: They were met by a sales person and were pushed hard to sign up for the treatment and pay deposit. They were not given any treatment options except what they do which is mostly all-on-4 treatment. One patient had some teeth that were perfectly fine but needed some minor periodontal therapy. But she was told it's better to get them out and just do all implants. Another patient who had a failed implant, had to pay for the replacement and she was very unhappy because it was done just two years ago.

The two doctors I talked to said that they left the center because it was very corporate like and it did not offer an atmosphere for true multi-specialty team approach. They felt they were driven into offering all extractions and all implants with no other options. And they felt production was the priority rather than comprehensive dentistry. Another point descried by them was that when they were done with patient's treatment, they had to ship the patients back to their general dentist for cleaning and check ups. This is of course not a good idea when it comes to continuity of care and taking responsibility of a patient's care over time.

My personal opinion is they are great marketers with lots of hype. The fact is the 'same day teeth' that they promise, is only possible in a very small group of patients who meet the right criteria. Also, the treatment they offer is not patient-centered; it's rather corporate-centered which is usually not in the best interest of the patients. I suggest all patients to ask the right questions when choosing any dentist for their implant care and make decisions based on proper criteria. In our website (under FAQ section), we describe the key questions patients need to ask to make sure they are on the right path.

I hope this is helpful.

Dr. Kazemi

ClearClearchoice is a venture capital backed for profit operation. Like many many big businesses they are flush with cash for marketing and maintaining a large department of attorneys that intimidate possible lawsuits or other challenges.  They are working more off a business model.  When choosing a doctor or dentist or anything that involves your health you should be concerned about the underlying motives of the doctor.  HOw much time did the doctor spend with you?  Do you have a gut feeling of trust for that doctor?

These mass production centers are geared on making money. In order to compete with low prices a compromise on the quality of the products they use and the experience of the practitioners. There is a lot of implants on the market that are not the same quality of the main brands with no safety research or  quality control and they are very cheap thus the low prices that are given. For instance, the most established brands of dental implants cost the surgeon on average $600 while the clones that benefited from a loop hole in the FDA regulation called 510K, cost average $90. There is no long term survival rate of these implants, just machines milling a titanium rod 24 hours without any quality control….
Second phase of the dental implant treatment are the crowns placed on top of the dental implants. The quality is based on the material that they are made from. In implant dentistry the alloy ( which is the metal) consists of a noble metal such as gold. You can imagine how expensive gold is right now and if you compare, you will find out that it is not possible they are using quality material.
Dentistry and in particular esthetic and implant part of it can’t be the same model as K-Mart….