Objective:To analyze the preferences of outpatients in a tertiary public specialized hospital, for references for optimizing the allocation of outpatient medical resources, and enhancing the medical experience.Methods:This study used convenience sampling method to select outpatients from a tertiary public stomatological hospital from January to September 2022 as the survey subjects, and conducted a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire mainly included gender, age, place of residence, education level, and medical needs, etc. Logistic regression model and Boruta algorithm were used to analyze the factors influencing patients′ preferred tertiary public specialized hospitals for treatment.Results:A total of 19 255 patients were included in this study. 13 558 patients (70.41%) preferred tertiary public specialized hospital for treatment, including 9 715 patients (71.65%) aged 21 to 45, 1 015 local patients (73.87%), 8 278 patients (61.05%) who chose treatment options, and 6 442 patients (47.51%) who came to the hospital for medical insurance reimbursement. By logistic regression analysis, age, residence, education level, medical needs, oral health habits, access to oral health knowledge, pre interview experience of Internet hospitals, monthly income, number of family members and reasons for seeking medical treatment were the influencing factors of patients′ preference for tertiary public specialized hospitals. According to the Boruta algorithm analysis, the top 6 important factors were the reasons for seeking medical treatment (Z=126.66), oral health habits (Z=96.44), access to oral health knowledge (Z=66.91), medical needs (Z=62.21), age (Z=57.54), and residence (Z=55.21).Conclusions:Local patients and young and middle-aged patients tended to choose tertiary public specialized hospitals for treatment, and treatment projects were the main business types that attract patients to visit tertiary public specialized hospitals. There were many important influencing factors for patients choosing tertiary public specialized hospitals for treatment, including the reasons for seeking medical treatment, oral health habits, access to oral health knowledge, and medical needs.