Dr. David Chotiner has built a 25-year career in San Diego dentistry around a single, persistent question: why do so many well-built treatment plans go unaccepted — and what would it actually take to change that?
A Southern California native raised in Northridge, Dr. Dave traces his path back further than most: in second grade, around age six, he drew himself as a dentist. It reads today less like a coincidence than a preview — one of those rare instances where a childhood ambition and an adult career line up almost exactly.
He earned his Bachelor of Science from San Diego State University before heading east for dental school, completing his DMD at the Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine between 1997 and 2001. From there, he came home to Southern California to build his career on familiar ground.
In 2003, Dr. Dave opened Coastal Dental Arts in downtown San Diego — built from the ground up rather than purchased. Two decades and three expansions later, it has grown into a multi-specialty practice with a team of dentists working alongside him.
In 2024, he brought Coastal Dental Arts into a partnership with MB2 Dental. He's been candid that he approached the arrangement with real skepticism, having watched similar models promise autonomy and quietly take it away. What changed his mind was a structure that let him keep full clinical and operational control while gaining the backing of a larger partnership network — the rare version of that deal that delivers what it promises.
Draws himself as a dentist in a second-grade classroom assignment — an early, oddly literal preview of the career that followed.
Completes his Bachelor of Science before heading east for dental school.
Earns his DMD from the Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine.
Founds Coastal Dental Arts from the ground up in downtown San Diego.
Grows the practice through three expansions into a multi-specialty office, and becomes a recognized Continuing Education provider with the Dental Board of California and an educational collaborator with 3M ESPE.
Formulates and launches RevitaBite, a functional oral care gum born from years of watching patients fall short of ideal home-care routines.
Partners Coastal Dental Arts with MB2 Dental, retaining full ownership and clinical autonomy.
Headlines the San Diego County Dental Society's inaugural "Speaker Spotlight" series on modern practice building, communication, and case acceptance — and co-founds TreatPath to put that framework directly into the hands of other practices.
He didn't just lend his name. He co-founded the companies — and kept practicing.
Dentistry has plenty of practitioners who license their name to a product line built and owned entirely by someone else, or who quietly step back from clinical work once the business side takes off. Dr. Dave's path runs the opposite way on both counts.
He is still a full-time practicing dentist — Coastal Dental Arts isn't a credential on a pitch deck, it's where he sees patients every week. He co-founded RevitaBite and serves as its clinical face: a genuine ownership stake and the dental expertise the product is built around, not a paid endorsement from someone with no real involvement in the company. When he identified a second, related gap — that even a sound treatment plan routinely goes unaccepted because of how it's communicated, not what it contains — he went further still and co-founded a second company, TreatPath, built directly from the case-acceptance framework he already teaches other dentists.
A clinician who never left the chair. A co-founder with real stake in both companies carrying his name, not a rented endorsement. And with TreatPath specifically, a founder whose own teaching material is the product. Taken together, that's what separates him from the broader field of "dentist entrepreneurs" wearing a white coat over an idea that started somewhere else.
Dr. Dave's clinical approach pairs comprehensive treatment planning with communication tailored to the person in the chair — including DISC-style behavioral analysis to adapt how a plan is presented. His standard, in his own words, is executing ideal dentistry whenever possible: not the fastest plan or the easiest sell, but the right one, delivered in a way the patient can actually say yes to.
Away from Coastal Dental Arts, Dr. Dave spends his time with his wife and two children — coaching his son's little league team, and when the season ends, trading the dugout for a round of golf together. It's an unremarkable family life underneath a career that's produced anything but.