Palo Alto Advanced Dentists

I’ve been a patient of Dr. Ho for several years now and I can’t think of any reason why I would switch dentists. The receptionists and assistants in the back are very friendly and helpful. They were able to squeeze me into their busy schedule at the last minute because I had a dental emergency.
The front office manager is very knowledge about everything dental related including what is being done by the doctors and why my insurance company won’t cover a specific treatment procedure.
The treatment that I have received from Dr. Ho has been the best I have ever experienced. His cleanings are very thorough and comprehensive. The fillings and crowns he does do not chip/​crack or fall off at all. I believe he is definitely the best in the business.

I’ve seen Dr. Erickson for several years now, and I’ve been very happy with the treatment I’ve received. He is thorough, explains things in a logical an easy to understand manner, and has a great bedside manner. The office is also very helpful in figuring out the financial side of things if there are, for example, shortfalls in coverage.

Complete mismanagement! If you have appointment at 3, no matter how early you arrive you will see a doctor at 3:30 only. We had an appointment for wisdom tooth extraction and we reached there they didn’t have any idea about the date! Shocked! I would never recommend anyone here!

I’ve been seeing Dr. Erickson at Palo Alto Advanced Dentist for several years. I honestly hate the dentist because they hold sharp objects next to my eyes, which terrifies me. However, Dr. Erickson is very good at accommodating my request to keep them as far away as possible. He is also very good at answering any questions thoroughly. He knows everything. I haven’t been able to stump him yet!

I’ve been going to Dr Ho’s practice for nine years and have met pretty much his entire staff. They are incredibly friendly and even remember me by name. Everything from having cavities filled, xrays, cleanings and an emergency «I need this fixed NOW!» which is actually how I met them. I now live in San Francisco but still come down to Palo Alto just for their services. My wife hates dentists and she also loves this place. Way to go.

This is a comfortable cleaning experience. Nice doctor and staff, friendly and patient. My doctor Azure Sun is a young, professional and thoughtful dentist. I also studied lots of knowledge about how to protect my teeth. Highly recommended!!!

Dr. Azure Sun is a wonderful dentist. She is very nice and professional, and really good at what she does, which is quick, painless dentistry. I will recommend my family and friend to come here Palo Alto Advance Dentists for their teeth care.

Over the recent years, I had my share of bad dentists, so I was finally avoiding them at all. Now I’m very happy that my friend introduced me to Dr. Trinh at Palo Alto Advanced Dentists. She recovered and repaired my teeth with great skill and patience; they are now «like new».
Overall Dr. Trinh is a very skilled dentist, very patient, and with «eyes and knowledge» to recognize exactly the important point.
Dr. Trinh is an outstanding dentist of the «hard-​to-​find kind». Thank you, Dr. Trinh.

I’ve been seeing Dr. Erickson here for over a year and have been really impressed. He always takes time to explain my x-​rays.

Dr. Ho is great! He is very gentle, patient and experienced in what he does. My husband and I both use him as our dentist. I am also getting the invisalign from him. It is a bit pricy, but hopefully it will all be worth it!

This is the first time to write a Unilocal review, which I think is very important to help more people make the correct choice. I hope people could read through carefully and avoid ruing your dental health and wasting your money.
I had an extremely nightmare experience at this so called «Harvard» advanced dentists office. I found that those 5 star reviews mislead more and more people including me to this terrible place, which reminds me to write this review.
I suppose those five stars all came from the basic cleaning service, most other dental office could do the same quality.
I came here for root canal on a Saturday. I thought Dr. Ho should be the best in this office, since there are quite a few different dentists. He did the root canal for me. But during the process, he went away so many times for other patients. Other technicians just randomly came in to «continue» his job. Finally, he showed the x-​ray image, telling me it was perfectly done.
However, the next day, I experienced terrible unbearable pain. I called the doctor, he said it could be affection which he also told me right after the treatment. I visited again to pick up a prescription for antibiotics. The next few days, I could not sleep with the terrible pain. I also took a lot of pain killers following the dentists’ words. doesn’t even help. I experienced extremely terrible pain for the whole week.
Then I visited again as a follow-​up, they just took another x-​ray and showed me it’s fine. told me to take more antibiotics!!! They also made another «Follow-​up» appointment for me around 2 weeks later.
Fortunately at that time I got some suggestion from my dad and took some other medicine to relieve the pain significantly.
I wish I could trust them for the last time. But until I received a few mails from my dental insurance company, I realize that they even charged so much for so called «Follow-​up» visits. The main treatment was already so expensive and painful!!!
By the way, the «follow-​up» suppose to have the primary dentist who did the root canal for me, but at each visit by appointment, it’s different dentist…
My visits were negative experience. I need to spend more time and money to fix my tooth now, which is much worse than the condition before the treatment.
Exactly as Dominique N. said, it was totally waste of time, money, and PAINFUL!

Kevin Christensen says :
” I had the best experience At this dental office, they were so nice & friendly, they made going to the dentist stress free and enjoyable! I gave this office and the staff an a+ rating du to the friendliness and for providing a comfortable environment. I feel this is by far the best dentist office in all of palo alto!!!
From the ladies in the front to the dentist in the back … I thank you all for your gentleness, kindness and willingness.
I look forward to returning to such a great dental office!
Truly wonderful!
Thank you!
Kevin.

I just got an email reminder to schedule a cleaning, which reminded me to write this review. Let’s just say I unsubscribed from the email and I have found another dentist.
I came here a twice. Once for a general cleaning and then once to get «cavities» filled. Both times, I had to wait about 15 minutes over my appointment time because my dentist was running late (some female dentist). Then I would be sitting in the waiting room and she would come in with almost no sense or urgency.
Anyway, during my cleaning, they told me that all of my previous fillings (four of them, okay I ate a lot of candy when I was little), were old and should be replaced. Suspicious? I think so. I stupidly said okay, and we decided to break it up into two appointments, so do two fillings for each visit. The cleaning went okay.
But the trouble started when I came in for the first round of fillings. We were doing the two bottom teeth (one on each side). After coming in late again, the dentist started numbing my mouth. She kept injecting me and rubbing her finger hard all over the injection site, what I thought was spreading the numbness. Right side went okay. But when it came to my left side, I have NO idea what she injected, but it hurt like hell, and my muscles completely froze up. I couldn’t open my mouth more than half an inch open without my muscles started to freeze up. She seemed concerned, told me sometimes these things happen, and then tried to continue to do the fillings. Except she kept trying to pry my frozen mouth open, and would just put me in so much pain.
In the end she somehow finished the fillings, my mouth was incredibly sore and tired, and I could not open my mouth or talk for the good majority of the day. It lasted like five hours. She called me in the evening to ask how my mouth was doing, and I told her it was incredibly sore and I couldn’t even eat all day because it was so sore. I’ve never had my mouth unable to open like that. I have no idea what she injected, but I sure know she did it wrong.
I cancelled the other appointment for the remaining fillings and started going to another dentist. During my first visit with the new dentist I asked him about the fillings, and then the old fillings that I «had to get replaced». Guess what? No need to be replaced. It figures.

Had to swing back into the dentist to pick up a night guard and again the experience was great. I saw them a few weeks ago and got fitted for one, it came in today and was a perfect fit. The staff was friendly as always and my appointment started on time. The guard fit perfectly and i was out the door in a matter of minutes.
I highly recommend this dentist — it has been a great experience over the past few years.

I went to Dr. Ho a few years ago. He came across to me as a so-​so dentist. He’s a general dentist who tries to do everything under the guise of comprehensive care but that didn’t instill much confidence in me. I had a root canal/​crown/​bridge he set and it cracked and fell out within month, leaving a gaping hole where food got stuck constantly. I never felt confident about this dentist so I went elsewhere. Subsequent dentists indicated that this could have been done better. Recently got it fixed elsewhere and it’s holding after two months. I’ve been to other excellent dentists before and after this dentist and they always referred me to specialists when necessary. There’s a reason for specialists in the medical and dental fields — no one can know it all and be good at everything. I would not recommend the Harvard dentist.

I try to state if my review is solicited. This is an unsolicited review. Dr. Ho gave me a crown back in 1998 or so. I then moved to SF. After two bad experiences with SF/​Berkeley dental offices, I decided to return to Dr. Ho because the crown he had done was still perfect after years. He repaired the problem created by a widely known top-​dollar SF dentist, namely a painful crown with a gap. I still commute down to Dr. Ho for dentistry. He may be a bit brief in his communications with me and staff, but I couldn’t care less about that. I don’t go for chit-​chat. I would not go to a dentist at all if I could avoid it. I want a very smart dentist who is also skillful at procedure, and Dr. Ho has proven his abilities to me through several different procedures.

They’re good.
I go there. I saw it on Unilocal and if you want insights, read those Unilocal reviews

If I could give negative 1million stars I would.
After coming to the new office to get a crown «installed» in August, all i wanted to do was forget about the whole EXCRUCIATING ordeal. But mining for the crusty crap at the root of the poorly installed crown forced me to share my experience.
I saw Dr. Ho in 2007 and was fine. However, on this visit to their new facility, I was seen by a female dentist who in my mind I call Dr. Horrible.
My visit was TERRIBLE:
The front office receptionist was young and patronizing. She provided some of the worst service.
The new office was not even installed with internet when I arrived. Therefore Dr. Horrible had not even seen my x-​rays my regular dentist had sent in avance. She was examining them on one of the staff’s iPhones! And only after I asked if she had seen them! They really should not even have been open.
Durring the procedure the anesthetic in my mouth wore off and I asked for more. Rather than applying the topical anesthetic again SHE JABBED MY PERFECTLY FEELING GUMS WITH A SYRINGE!!! The pain was EXCRUCIATING! I instantly burst into tears. Dr. Horrible and her assistant cooed at me like a tantrumy child. I had to explain through sobs that, no I was not «afraid» i was in terrible pain and I felt the entire thing.
But, the pain didn’t stop there. The whole procedure was like this. My gums were horribly pained but them kept injecting anesthetic at the root of my tooth, never mind that it had already had a root canal and that obviously was not the source of the problem.
To make maters worse, what I was told was a one hour procedure ended up lasting 5 HOURS!
I was so upset. And the whole time the annoying front office GIRL – and I say girl because she looked to be in her teens– kept saying dumb crap like «awww, you’ll be ok.» —Excuse me, but If anyone else came at me like that with a needle I would punch them in the mouth.
I will NEVER EVER EVER be visiting Dr. Ho’s Office, and I would not recommend that you or anyone who you care about do so either. It is bad enough that I had to deal with such ridiculous INCOMPETENCE, but now my darn crown is not even adequate! There is a gap between my tooth and the crown which catches and captures stray food no matter the amount I floss.
BEWARE!
Waste of time, money, and PAINFUL!

Two stars for the very friendly and helpful front-​desk and billing personnel.
BUT, I’d have to agree with the other reviewer that I was uncomfortable with the way Dr. Ho spoke to his assistant during the cleaning – like an impatient adult chastising a child. And this happened multiple times.
Also, I’ve actually seen two other dentists at this clinic (Dr. Trahn and Dr. Riley, both of whom were great) and Dr. Ho was by far the roughest when it came to testing the health of the gums surrounding each tooth – you know, when he pokes at the gum with the hooked tool and calls out a number between 1 and 5? I’d actually been given lots of anesthetic beforehand for a deep cleaning, but I was still wincing throughout this procedure (maybe he thought I wouldn’t feel anything because I’d been thoroughly numbed?).
My last complaint I offer with reservations, since I’m not a dentist, but when Dr. Ho had finished putting in a filling, he asked me to feel with my tongue for rough spots and I said I couldn’t because my entire mouth had been numbed. He said, «Oh, bummer.» First of all, shouldn’t that have been obvious to him (that I wouldn’t be able to feel anything)? Second, even before I regained feeling in my mouth, once I got home, I could actually feel with my finger that the filling was protruding very far out and was quite sharp. This surprised me, and I feel that an experienced dentist shouldn’t have allowed this to happen.

I started the rounds with Dr Arami who managed to terrify me so much with my deep cleaning (seriously, spray-​on anesthetic does NOTHING for you — ask for the rub-​on anesthetic before they bring out the big needle because it will seriously take 90−95% of the pain away from that shot) that I requested Dr Ho for my root canal.
I have to say I had a virtually painless root canal thanks to one Dr Ho. What I also got was a lot of wait time (random bouts of waiting which I wasn’t thrilled about) and the feeling that I was always placed in front of a portable DVD player to watch an instructional video whenever I asked Dr Ho a question like, «What is a root canal?» or «What does that do?»
Maybe he got tired of my questions (and my request to have my cool root canal xray emailed to me) because my next cleaning in April is scheduled with Dr Lin. So I will be able to accurately report on all three practising dentists in the Dr Ho Arami Lin dental facility in Palo Alto. *bows*
By the way, be very amused when Dr Ho calls the suction «Mr Thirsty».