Open Floor Plan Dentists

[kitkat]

I think we agree then Kitkat. Open-plan has confidentiality issues (those totally open ones do still exist in pediatric dentistry according to my sources - HIPA is sometimes incorrectly used to try to tell parents they can't accompany their kids); and you are right multiple rooms also potentially allows patient-hopping.
However in all my UK experience (private and NHS) all dentists have only ever had their own single chair/treatment room, it is their treatment room, the hygienist has her own treatment room....happily that is just the way it is and it is almost impossible to patient-hop if you only have the one dental chair to seat a patient in.
A good pediatric dentist one of my kids saw in another EU country had a single room and a waiting room, parents allowed in. He saw one patient/family in that room at a time. GA cases would be done by him in hospital.

The norms (maybe partly because premises are in older smaller buildings in UK) are just very different. But like I said being a doctor/dentist in UK is about making a comfortable living not becoming a billionaire.

Thank you for sharing that Brit. This is news to me. I had no idea the UK operated that way (with the single treatment room). Given the significant differences between offices in the US and the UK I see your point about the "patient-hopping." It seems like what some people in the US may not consider "patient-hopping" would in fact be "patient-hopping" by UK standards. Every office I have visited has had multiple patient rooms. In my experience, you are never or rarely left alone, you are typically with the dentist, the assistant, or the hygienist or some combination depending on what you are there for but I have never felt like any of these professionals have not spent an adequate amount of time with me. My dentist makes a point of carrying out an exam at every appointment. Every dentist I have had in the past would only actually see you once a year (every other appointment) which sounds ridiculous to me now. My current dentist has done my cleanings before but typically a hygienist carries this out and the dentist drops in at the end to speak with me. If it's a longer procedure, I'm obviously with the dentist the majority of the time BUT if we are at some break in the procedure (i.e., the assistant is drying the filling material, etc.,) it is not uncommon for the dentist to step away momentarily to see a patient at a 6-month appointment to conduct an exam and speak with a patient and return to my room. By UK standards this would probably be considered "patient-hopping" but by the US standard this is just expected.

 

[Kajikit]

The dentist I just saw yesterday was the first I've been to with an 'open' hygiene area. I was a little startled by it, but also kind of reassured - it's anything but claustrophobic! They had two chairs for working on people, well seperated and with a bunch of stuff in between them so you couldn't see the other patient, and all they were doing out there was tooth-cleaning and x-rays, which are hardly invasive dental work. I had the basics done in there, then they moved me into a private room to have the root canal. The sound of a drill is inescapable no matter how large the dentist's office... I don't think I've ever been to a practice where I didn't hear it through the walls.

 

[dontlikedentists]

omg I would have been frozen with fear well done you for staying hope I never ever see the day when my dentists go open plan that would be the end of dentists for me, it's hard enough to sit through your own drilling let alone everyone around you it's just to awful to contemplate,

The dentist I went to for my crown didn't have rooms it was one big room with separate areas provided by cabinets. Basically visually private, but you could hear everything.
I sat waiting in the chair for 3 hours (while they made the crown) and could hear private conversations, and, worse, The Drill being used on other patients. And that was with wearing headphones.
It was awful; I had bought stuff to do while I waited, but I couldn't concentrate on anything because of the sounds. (I thought I would be in the waiting room, not sitting in The Chair, which was bad enough.) At one point, I had to cover my ears (yeah, that was mature). I wanted to leave so badly, but I had done the hard part already, so I kept forcing myself to stay (I may not have if I had known it was going to be 3 hours waiting and not 1)
Why do dentists have offices like that? Don't they know that people don't want to hear everything going on around them? And don't want people to hear them.
Do they do it just to squeeze more areas in or do some people think it is actually helpful to patients?

 

[Aldridge]

SAME HERE Thank heaven for a one-man practice.