How clinics rank
Some clinics pay for a Featured slot. Paying never changes a clinic's score or its place in the ranking.
Eligibility gate
A clinic must pass two checks before it enters the ranking at all.
- The clinic's own website lists the treatment for that page, or its Google Business category or NPI taxonomy confirms the specialty (used for endodontists, oral surgeons, and periodontists).
- The listing is not marked permanently closed.
Clinics that do not pass both checks are excluded and do not appear anywhere on the page, ranked or unranked.
Scoring: six signals, 100 points
Raw Google star rating weighted toward the page average when review counts are low. A clinic with 10 reviews and a 5-star average scores closer to the page mean than a clinic with 400 reviews and the same average.
Formula: adjusted = (review count × raw rating + 80 × page mean) / (review count + 80). Score = adjusted × 7.
Log base-10 of review count, capped at 2,000. A clinic with 200 reviews scores higher than one with 20, but the gap narrows at high counts.
Specific services on the clinic's own site for the page's treatment. For implants: All-on-4, IV sedation and other sedation. For Invisalign: clear aligners, orthodontics and care for children. Each confirmed service adds points; a matching NPI specialist on staff adds 4 more.
A price found on the clinic's own site and recorded with a source URL and read date. Must be a named, published figure. A quote given after an exam or an estimate does not count.
Financing (CareCredit, Lending Club, etc.), membership plan, in-network insurance, and Medicaid acceptance. Points are awarded for each option confirmed.
Dentists and specialists at this location matched to records in the federal NPI register (NPPES). Each record lists the provider's specialty.
Worked example
The top-ranked dental implant clinic in Raleigh, NC is Cary Implant and General Dentistry, with a score of 77 out of 100.
Data freshness
Scores are recalculated each time the data is refreshed. The month of the data is printed under each page title. Scores can go up or down between refreshes as clinics add services, accumulate reviews, or publish prices.
Paying clinics
Some clinics pay for a Featured slot. Paying never changes a clinic's score or its place in the ranking. A Featured slot appears above the ranked list when a clinic has purchased one. Its score and rank in the main list reflect the same signals as every other clinic.