High Costs Top Patient Complaints About Dental Practices

The unexpected and high costs of services and treatment are the most common complaint that patients have about dental practices, according to a survey by DentaVox, followed closely by the quality of those services and treatments and long waiting times. Overall, the top complaints included:

• Unexpected high costs of services and treatments (20.9%)
• Quality of dental services and treatments (19.3%)
• Long waiting times (15.4%)
• Post-treatment complications and adverse reactions (7.6%)
• Adverse incidents during treatments (5.6%)
• Poor hygiene (5.6%)
• Delays in diagnosis (4.8%)
• Inappropriate behavior of dental staff (4.8%)
• Use of old technology and methods (4.5%)
• No or too little explanation about services and treatments (3.9%)
• No or too little consideration of patient desires (2.9%)
• No or too little consideration of patient symptoms (2.8%)

Some of these issues matter more than others, explained DentaVox, which also asked its respondents which complaints were the most serious. According to the survey, the most serious complaints included:

• Quality of dental services and treatments (18.2%)
• Poor hygiene (13.6%)
• Post-treatment complications and adverse reactions (10.3%)
• Unexpected high costs of services and treatments (9.5%)
• Adverse incidents during treatments (9.2%)
• Use of old technology and methods (7.0%)
• Inappropriate behavior of dental staff (6.5%)
• Delays in diagnosis (6.2%)
• Long waiting times (5.0%)
• No or too little consideration of patient symptoms (3.4%)
• No or too little explanation about services and treatments (2.9%)
• No or too little consideration of patient desires (1.9%)
• All are equally serious (5.0%)

So how many complaints would cause patients to choose a different dental practice? DentalVox crunched those numbers too:

• Several serious complaints (40.6%)
• One serious complaint (23.3%)
• Many complaints (16.1%)
• Several non-serious complaints (14.9%)

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