To begin with: if not for the incident below, I would probably have given Dr. Forbes 5 stars based…read moreon my experience with him. I have had other dentists say my teeth were in great condition, and he was my dentist growing up. I'm just writing this as a slap-on-the-wrist for him and a warning to others to get a second opinion before spending lots of money on healthcare.
As I mentioned above, Dr. Forbes was my dentist my entire childhood; I went to him once or twice a year (I don't remember). He referred my parents to an orthodontist for my braces and the orthodontist did a great job (as far as I can tell; I'm not an expert). Dr. Forbes is a friendly, polite, intelligent guy and so were the staff I interacted with. And he has a very handsome voice; I'm sure he gets compliments on it all the time.
I just had one bad experience: in the summer(?) of 2009 I went to him for my routine check-up. At the end of my cleaning, the hygienist congratulated me and said that I had no cavities. Dr. Forbes then came in to do his final review, and he said I had TEN cavities. I'd had a few cavities filled before, but no more than around two (as far as I remember), and even two was a lot. Ten cavities was astounding. If I remember correctly, he said they were small but that I should get them filled now. He said the price for this would be $200 per cavity, for a total of $2,000. I remember the hygienist looked uncomfortable while he was talking, probably because it so wildly contradicted her diagnosis from just a few minutes earlier.
At the time, I'd never had any bad experiences with any doctor or dentist, and I trusted these people like my own parents. I had also spent my entire life up to that point in the school system, where I had been taught to trust the older people (teachers, nurses, etc) who took care of me. I was very upset and embarrassed, but (if you can believe this, I barely can) as far as I can remember it never crossed my mind that this was an attempt to 'upsell' me rather than his professional opinion.
So I told my mom, and we did as he recommended. We got the cavities filled.
In hindsight, I realize this was happening in 2009 and I'm guessing the the financial crisis had hit our area hard (since we're right outside Manhattan and lots of people on Wall St. live in our area). If I had to guess, I would guess that he'd been getting a lot of cancellations over the past few months and needed some revenue so that he could continue paying his staff.
It also seems plausible to me that this dental work may have been a fair deal / good idea, even at $2,000. I'm not an expert, so I can't say for sure.
All I can say is that $2,000 was a lot of money to my family then, it took us years to pay it off (I think it was sent to collections), I haven't been back to see him since, and the whole experience has left me feeling sad whenever I think about it.
The one good thing I can see from the whole experience is that the memory of that has made me much more cautious about spending money when doctors and dentists recommend it. Their incentives are not totally aligned with yours, and you should remember that.
And again, other than that experience, he was great. And I'm not trying to imply I'm any better than he is; I'm sure someone could write a review like this about me from things I did years ago (although I haven't gone into business yet so it wouldn't involve money). So you should feel fine going to him. Just remember that his incentives are not totally aligned with yours.