Posted by writeradmin
My husband broke a tooth and we went in to see a dentist who advertised as being a cheap dentist. We’ve been having trouble making it financially because the economy is a disaster and everything costs more. He told us he would extract the tooth and then do a dental bridge. He also would get a dental flipper in the meantime. When we got there, he decided the tooth needed a root canal treatment over the tooth. We did ask him to get pre-authorization with our insurance. After arguing with us for a bit on that, he finally agreed. Then we went ahead with the procedure. We thought everything was sorted and paid a little over $2k for our portion and the insurance was going to cover the rest. Then, a few months later we find out that the insurance will not give us a dental bridge and now the dentist will want an additional $1000. We are arguing this because he was supposed to have gotten pre-authorization. He’s finally agreed to give us a refund as long as we sign a statement saying that we will not hold him responsible for the dental flipper he did, which has already broken twice. Should we do that in order to get our money back? Even with all of this, he was cheaper than every other dentist in our area.
Allie
Dear Allie,
I am sorry this happened to you. Unfortunately, a “cheap” dentist and an affordable dentist are not the same thing. Often you will find that a dentist who’s prices are way under the norm will be that way because they either have trouble keeping patients because of a lack of skill or because they use subpar materials in order to keep their profit margin up.
You’ve probably already realized this by now, but I think you are not with the best dentist and should look for a different one. However, you do deserve to get your money back. This dentist was dishonest and can’t even do reliable work. My suspicion is that he is asking you to sign the statement because he knows that his work is suspect and he doesn’t want to be brought to court.
Here is what I would tell him in your place. Tell him that you would prefer not to sue him and won’t as long as he gives you a refund, but you will not be signing any release. If he give you trouble you might want to mention that you hope his malpractice insurance is up to date and he’ll be hearing from your lawyer. I would also report him to the insurance company as well as the dental board.
I’m sorry this happened to you. You didn’t mention why the insurance declined the dental bridge. Hopefully, whatever dentist you end up with will be able to give your husband the help he needs. There are many tooth replacement options.
This blog is brought to you by Lafayette, LA Dentist Dr. John Theriot.