I believe that all dental advertisements, whether they be in the form of a newspaper ad or a radio bit, can be placed along a spectrum of professionalism. On one end of the spectrum, you have a classy advert that helps establish a respectable identity for an office and contributes to the nobility of our fine profession.
And on the other side of that spectrum, you have a giant piece of dog shit:
Now in case you missed it, let me break it down for you. This guy is being an asshole.
I don’t normally use foul language on The Curious Dentist. When it comes to controversy, I try to be a gentleman and take the higher ground. But seriously… this guy is being an asshole.
I don’t have a problem with a dentist advertising that he/she has a low fee for a service. If you want your biggest selling point to the world to be that you’re cheap, then I wish you the best of luck with that. You’re going to be attracting patients who care more about money than quality care. But it is your right to do so and I don’t have a problem with that approach. It’s just not my cup of tea.
These are difficult economic times and dentists should always be sensitive to the financial situations of their patients. I bend over backwards in my practice to find ways to make necessary dentistry affordable.
But this dude’s main selling point is that the rest of his profession (you and I and everyone else) is greedy and sets our fees based upon our need to drive a Mercedes Benz. Here are a few thoughts:
(1) I drive a Honda Accord.
(2) My fee for implant services is based not upon my need to drive a fancy automobile, but on several factors, especially the high overhead involved in doing these cases. That’s because I use high quality implant systems and work with excellent dental labs.
(3) Which makes me wonder: if this guy can charge so little for his implant services, what implant system and dental lab is he using? Is it a fair assumption that he’s using garbage components and less than ideal labs to reduce his overhead?
(4) He’s being an asshole.
How DARE he try to sell out the rest of his profession just to make quick money. He should be ashamed of himself, whoever he is. Which brings me to my next point: who is he?
You’ll notice that his advertisement doesn’t list anything about his office. All you know is that he practices on Long Island. We don’t know who this person is. It’s as if he knows he’s doing something wrong and he has to conceal his identity.
In my humble opinion, asking a person visiting the site to submit their e-mail address in order to even learn the dentist’s identity is a nasty trick.
In short, this advertisement is a disgrace to our profession. Whoever did this should take it down immediately and go sit in a corner and think about what he’s done.
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