I was recommended to Dr. Orr by my dentist and had an easy operation of removing four wisdom teeth and two other teeth. Dr. Orr did an amazing job but...
The staff can be very hit or miss on how polite they are which is unfortunate, but the main problem I had with my experience is that the office never sent my information to my insurance provider to confirm what my out of pocket cost would be. They admitted to never sending the information which caused them to be off on their estimate of our end of the bill by 50%.
My husband and I lived with his parents in their guest room after getting married specifically to save up to pay cash up front for our cost of the operation to keep our goal to live debt free. We saved for many months until we had cash in hand and payed nearly 1000$ on the day of the surgery in early December and considered it done with. After paying for our total up front we moved out into an affordable apartment and no longer had the same means to save as we did before. We don't have tv or Internet to allow us to save for expenses such as our utility bills.
TWO MONTHS later we received a bill for nearly 500$ more. Stating that they were off on their estimate and upon further investigation, my insurance confirmed that they were never sent the materials they had expected to make their estimate and to no fault of their own had nothing they could do from their side.
After speaking with Bridget at this office who offered little sympathy for the situation and did confirm that the information never was sent for review to insurance, the best that her and her office manager offered when I asked them what they normally do when they make a mistake like this and how they plan to work it out, all they offered was that I can make payments, this bringing me to tears since we would NEVER have had the operation done unless we had the money to pay for it, I offered to pay as much as we could possibly afford that day if they would accept it on behalf of their mistake and call it an even deal. I was told no and left in tears.
If your office is going to be off in your estimates by that much I will absolutely never be sending anyone I know here. Being off by 10 or 15% seems more reasonable but for your medical bill to be way off like this can be extremely difficult and cause hardship. The principle is that if you will cut corners to save yourself time and not fax a few x-rays to an insurance company and put the consequences of your own mistakes (that you openly admit you made) directly onto your patient, you will absolutely lose credibility. Medical expenses are difficult as they are for many people, and saving to pay in advance took a lot of sacrifice. We had no ill intentions, just trying to live carefully and plan ahead to avoid any unplanned expenses.
I will be writing a letter to my dentist (at alpine dental) and speaking to him in person about my dissatisfaction and encourage him to stop sending his patients to your office.
I wish this experience had ended much different and that I could instead be writing a positive review about how the staff took responsibility for their mistake and offered an honest apology.