I had the exact same experience. I live in a small mountain town with 500 people. I saw the local dentist in town for 10 years and he was great. Regular checkup

I had the exact same experience. I live in a small mountain town with 500 people. I saw the local dentist in town for 10 years and he was great. Regular checkups, rays, cleanings etc. with one patch when I chipped a tooth. The office definitely seemed old school, nothing fancy. My dental health was fine. He retired and was unable to sell his practice so it closed. I googled around and found a dentist in a much larger town 2 hours away. Super nice office, all the latest technology. After the first appointment he said that I had something like 5 old fillings that needed to be repaired and a bunch of other stuff. I have good dental insurance but he was going to charge them something like 5k. It just felt scummy. I didn't go back and now go to another "country" dentist in the next town over and it's back to normal.