When people from Philadelphia, its suburbs and the world over have sought out the highest-quality dental work to ensure a healthy, aesthetically pleasing smile, they have consistently turned to one practice: Amsterdam Dental Group.
All of this established practice’s patients, regardless of their job title or location, benefit from the same level of exceptional care, unrivaled expertise and service that can be best described as “beyond boutique.”
“For a long time we’ve been providing hope for the hopeless—people with a terminal dentition—by saving teeth no one else could save, and we’ve had those people leave our office happy and smiling,” says Harold S. Baumgarten, D.M.D., one of three dentists with Amsterdam Dental Group, which has offices in Center City and Paoli. “That’s the standard of care we provide in our practice. In the past, high-profile people have come to see us from foreign countries, and we’ve even had the Secret Service here in the office while we were taking care of certain luminaries.”
Started 60 years ago by dentistry pioneer Morton Amsterdam, D.D.S., Amsterdam Dental Group is now led by three highly respected, highly decorated dentists—Dr. Baumgarten, Howard P. Fraiman, D.M.D., and Jeffrey S. Ingber, D.M.D.—who offer the full spectrum of dental care, including dental implants, veneers, bridges, crowns, teeth whitening and Invisalign orthodontic treatment. Each of the dentists brings to the practice a multidisciplinary approach to dentistry; in fact, it is the only practice in Philadelphia featuring three specialists with a dual specialty in periodontics and prosthodontics. Due to their expertise, all three dentists have become clinical professors in the graduate program at the University of Pennsylvania, where they are helping to shape the talents of the next generation of dentistry professionals.
“Our patients are people who want cream-of-the-crop care,” says Dr. Fraiman, who earned his degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania; he was chosen for an advanced six-year program—Penn chooses only two students for this program each year—instead of the traditional eight years. “Our Center City office has been providing the Rolls-Royce of dentistry for years, and we’ve now brought the practice to the far western suburbs to provide access to the same care for people west of Villanova.
“People seek us out for the finest dentistry available,” he continues. “What we’re doing is consistently providing solutions that weren’t achievable anywhere else. It starts with our specialty training and extends to the way patients are treated in the office.”
In addition to the dentists’ specialized training, the practice’s sterling reputation stems from a state-of-the-art dental laboratory in the Center City office, which gives the doctors the ability to customize restorations for each individual patient. This means dental work is kept entirely within the office, with all crowns and restorations being custom fabricated on site—and the “finished product” is always perfect, from fit to shading. Advanced digital imaging and the technicians’ own artistic expertise combine to ensure that a crown’s color is indistinguishable from the rest of the teeth in the patient’s mouth, according to Dr. Ingber. The average shade guide has only 16 shades, which matches only a small percentage of people’s teeth. Amsterdam Dental Group, on the other hand, uses shade modifiers as part of a custom shade guide to match the coloring of a restoration precisely.
“It can be difficult to communicate something like, ‘This crown needs to be a little whiter’ to a distant lab,’” says Dr. Baumgarten, who earned his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. “But because everything is done on site at our office, and because we have the patient right there with us, it’s always perfect.”
The in-house dental lab, which is staffed by eight technicians, also enables the doctors to accomplish a great deal with each patient visit. While patients wait, they are “attended to” by the expert staff, which is empowered to order lunch for a patient, serve them coffee or tea and perform other tasks to make them as comfortable as possible. Dr. Ingber describes the practice as “beyond boutique,” with stunning décor and treatment rooms that boast tremendous views of the entire city. The Paoli office, which the doctors lovingly refer to as “our beach office,” is an extension of the Center City campus.
“We treat all our patients as people first,” says Dr. Ingber, a graduate of Temple University’s Kornberg School of Dentistry who received his dual-specialty training from the University of Pennsylvania. “The feeling you get when you walk into a beautiful hotel, that’s how you feel when you step into our office. Imagine the Ritz-Carlton; we’ve tried to create the same feeling in our office. Here, we’ve created something totally different—something very special that’s difficult to put into words.”
Leading the Way
Amsterdam Dental Group has embraced various kinds of new technology, from digital implant surgical planning and restoration fabrication to digital impressions, to ensure the best possible results. The digital impression system, for example, provides a highly detailed digital scan of an area of the mouth as the dentist prepares for a restoration. This process eliminates the imprecision associated with traditional tray-and-putty impressions, thereby improving accuracy and communication between the dental laboratory and the dentist.
“We have adopted many technologies like that, all with the patient in mind,” says Dr. Baumgarten. “We’ve been on the forefront of technology. We work with a lot of dental manufacturers in terms of testing technologies, and we adopt the technologies we see that can have the greatest benefit to patients.”
Advances have come in terms of technique as well, and dental implants are just one example. In the past, dentists traditionally removed teeth and let the gums heal, then evaluated and rebuilt the area before performing the implant procedure. This antiquated approach tends to complicate issues for patients, and also leaves them in a compromised state—without teeth. At Amsterdam Dental Group, an implant is often installed immediately after a tooth is pulled, enabling patients to have a perfect smile that same day.
“A patient will never leave our office toothless,” says Dr. Baumgarten. “It’s all about aesthetics and function, and our results are far superior. Very often, we can do these procedures minimally invasively, with no stitches and no swelling. … We endeavor to this minimally invasive approach in every case, whenever possible. For patients who are deathly afraid or phobic of losing teeth, this approach allows us to provide fixed teeth so they are never without the smile they want.”
Considering the practice’s expertise and positive patient outcomes, it should come as no surprise that all three of Amsterdam Dental Group’s dentists have been ranked among the region’s top dentists by Philadelphia magazine, Main Line Today and other respected publications. Patients are equally praising of the dentists.
One patient describes Dr. Fraiman’s “unbelievable caring, concern and personality” as “wonderful extras on top of excellent professional skills makes going to the dentist a very positive experience.” Another patient cited Dr. Ingber as “the best dentist I have ever had” because he “takes care of my dental needs with outstanding professional skills and always adds his perfectionism to whatever he is doing.” Yet another patient “couldn’t have asked for a more comfortable experience” while in the care of Dr. Baumgarten, who “has a gentle touch and he explained everything to me as he was going along. [It was] a pleasant experience if one can call dental surgery pleasant.”
One patient summed up the practice’s overall value, rather succinctly, by saying, “All service from all staff and clinicians was prompt and patient focused. I actually enjoyed going to the dentist.”
Amsterdam Dental Group
www.amsterdamdentalgroup.com
Two Office Locations
100 S. Broad Street, Suite 2000
Philadelphia, PA 19110
Phone: 215-568-8130
1800 E. Lancaster Pike
Paoli, PA 19301
Phone: 610-651-5611
