Without telling me beforehand he charged $1680 for a 4-quad scaling, my insurance company paid 80% of standard charge of $500 leaving me with a bill of $1255, when my friend had the same procedure for a total out of pocket expense of $75 (her dentist charged the standard rate of $500). Then his office refused to work with payments. His receptionist called at work, told me the minimum payment of $30/mo on the $700 left that I had set up wasn't enough to keep out of collections. When I asked what minimum she would accept she put me on hold. I waited for 15 minutes (at work, with work to do, may I add) until I finally hung up. I am filing a complaint with the NYS Board of Dentistry for violations of the consumer bill of rights.
It is one thing to be expensive and say so up front, but they knew how much more it would be and didn't say so. At the end of the 4th procedure the receptionist said, ""oh, the insurance won't cover everything, why don't you pay $500 now and I'll send a bill for the rest."" Stunned and caught of guard, I paid that $500 on credit then. I was completely floored when I got the remaining $700+ bill. She knew I'd owe a *lot* more than the insurance would cover before I had the procedure, but didn't tell me until after. I'm certain they know I would have chosen $75 over $1280, regardless of how good a dentist they think I will find him.
The summary is: I feel incredibly ripped off. I'm tired of having to be suspicious of everyone. When I asked if insurance covered the procedure, I was told, ""yes, but you'll still have to pay a little, of course."" (I don't remember ""verbatum"", but that was the feel of her response.) That is a lot different, than ""the typical insurance coverage is $500. We charge over three times that and so, where you would have to pay $75 at another dentist (what I would call a little more), you'll be paying $1255 with us."" Although I should have asked, ""what does a little more mean?"" They seemed like a nice couple and I couldn't bring myself to distrust their intent. , to believe they would be anything but completely straightforward about things. Live and learn. Sometimes I really hate Long Island.
Pros: dentistry work is fine they had seemed like nice people
Cons: huge unexpected expense for relatively standard procedure
more