Today's story is a little more serious in my mind. This fraud was committed by my old dentist. When we moved to Riverview I got lucky in that a new dentist opened an office almost right across the street from where I lived. I began to go there and except for the wait, I was very happy with everything. Once I split with my ex, and my health insurance kept getting changed around, I wasn't able to go every 6 months as I prefer to do. I was finally able to work out a plan with the dentist and scheduled my cleaning and appointment. It had been a while since I had x-rays so those were taken as well. I was told I had 3 cavities and how would I like to proceed. My plan was to do one at a time over a couple months to help spread out the cost which altogether was going to be around one thousand dollars to get all 3 done.
Before I scheduled to go back and get them done, I made plans to move so I thought I would just wait until I got settled and then I would take care of it. I moved, got new dental insurance so I made my appointments. As it had been a few years, it was time for new digital x-rays which were taken as well as the full exam done by my new dentist.
Imagine my surprise when she turned to me and said everything looks great, no cavities. She had the x-rays up on the computer and I was looking over her shoulder to follow her as she went through them. I was thrilled and relieved to hear that I am taking care of my teeth, but I was also very upset to know that my other dentist lied to me and was actually going to DRILL into MY HEALTHY teeth and put a filling in when it was not needed. Maybe I will give him the benefit of the doubt that it was not an intentional scam, but he just didn't know how to read x-rays. I am not sure which is worse, committing fraud or being incompetent. Especially because when I called to work out a plan, they knew that I was getting divorced and my financial situation was changed as I no longer had dental insurance.
I mean has it really come to where we need to get second opinions on whether we have a cavity or not? It saddens me to be taken advantage of and I wonder is it because now I am a single woman and perceived as more vulnerable? All I can say is I am SO glad to be with my current dentist who is absolutely wonderful!! I love her!
Follow Up 09/21/16
I have an interesting follow up. I went in for my normal cleaning only to find that my previous hygientist had mysteriously disappeared. The new hygientist does a gum check with that horrid sharp object and tells me that all my numbers are awful, that my last x-rays show bone loss and I need to have a deep cleaning at around $1200.00. I was like whoa, how had all this changed when everything was wonderful at my last appointment. I was told that my records were lost and they have no idea why I wasn't told this at my last appointment as they were looking at my last appointment x-rays in addition to the gum test. Something odd to me was they said I didn't need new x-rays. They literally had me in tears as I was expecting a simple cleaning that is covered by my insurance and now I am being told I have problems that are going to cost me a ton of money. I did leave in tears as they would not budge on other options. I got home did some research and decided I needed another opinion as I could not figure out how 6 months ago my gums were great and now I am in dire straights. My dad was told something similar at his appointment(different dentist) so we both thought we'd get another opinion. We made our appointments with the dentist that had done a lot of work on my dad's teeth years ago. Unfortunately for my dad he was told he definitely needed the deep cleaning. But lo and behold, after getting new x-rays and another fun gum check, my second opinion dentist was quite baffled as he said my x-rays showed NO bone loss, not even a tiny bit and my gums were all in the normal range, not even one was bad. I was relieved, but also very disappointed as again, I was scammed by a dentist wanting to do unnecessary work. So my words of advice is get a second and even a third opinion on expensive dental work!!
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