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| Western Dental Horrible Customer Service, Negligent and Fraudulent Billing, Very Long Wait Times, Rude Dentists Glendale, Arizona |
| 29th of Oct, 2011 by User120950 |
On Saturday, 8/6/11 I had a 3pm appointment to see an oral surgeon to have a wisdom tooth extracted. This was a followup appointment for a procedure I already had an existing contract for. I arrived at 2:45pm and signed in on the electronic monitor screen. When I arrived, no one was at the front desk. 5 mins later someone did appear, but they did not approach me and worked on something else behind the counter, completely ignoring me. Finally, about 5 mins after that, someone else appeared and confirmed my appointment. Please note that all the person did was confirm my appointment and then asked me to have a seat. At 3:15pm one of the attendants at the counter asked me to come back up to the counter and said there was a problem with the original contract I signed from my original visit a few weeks ago. Elizabeth and another lady at the counter told me that the price for the tooth extraction on the contract needed to be increased because they put down the wrong procedure name for the extraction. On the original contract they put down Partial Bony Extraction and they said they needed to change it to Full Bony Extraction, which would thereby increase the price because the specialist told them to. I told them that that was not the original contract I signed and that they could not just arbitrarily increase the price. When they were discussing with me the reason I had to pay more money, they were very short and curt with me and not at all personable. They then asked me to have a seat and said they would need to talk with a Specialist. I sat back down and noticed that another person in the waiting room was on his cell phone complaining about a similar issue--that Western Dental just arbitrarily increased the price on an item on his signed contract and was expecting him to pay the increased price. I also noticed during his cell phone conversation that he said he had already been waiting 2 hours to be seen and was thinking of "telling them to forget the whole thing and just walk out." While I was waiting I also noticed that some of the clerks behind the counter were discussing how much they should charge me instead--as if they could just simply change the price of anything on the contract and charge me extra for any of the payments. I waited an hour and fifteen minutes in the waiting room until Elizabeth at the counter decided that she was going to ask what was taking so long. Claudia, the supervisor, then came in and told me it was going to be another 30 to 45 minutes before the surgeon could see me. When I asked Claudia why Western Dental did not notify they were running behind schedule and why no phone call was made to me to notify me she simply said, "Sorry we did not do so." Several minutes later Dr. Collins came back to the counter to speak with me. What surprised me right away was his tone of voice--it had an angry tone to it and was patronizing and became more angry during the course of his conversation with me. I asked Dr. Collins the following questions: 1. If Western Dental has the right to just arbitrarily change the price on any item on a contract after it is signed, why was I not explicitly told this when I signed the contract? 2. Why did Western Dental wait to tell me until the day I walked in for the appointment that they were going to increase the price for something on a contract that I had already signed? Dr. Collins responded by pointing out the small title at the top of the contract. Dr. Collins told me that the small font title says, "Patient Estimator Worksheet". Dr. Collins told me that because the contract is called a Patient Estimator Worksheet all the prices on the sheet are estimates. Dr. Collins told me it was not his problem that I did not "notice the fine print." As I attempted to ask him further questions, he interrupted me and then interjected that if I did not like it, I could just leave. I then asked him why he was suddenly changing his voice tone and he rebuffed me and said he wasn't and then turned his back on me and walked out of the room before I could say anything else. Elizabeth then asked me if I wanted to have the procedure done or not. I told her I didn't have a choice and needed it done. I then told Elizabeth that I was unhappy with Western Dental's treatment towards me and told her that I was cancelling my follow up appointment (which would have been a follow up appointment for a deep teeth cleaning Western Dental had done previously) and I would not be doing further business with Western Dental. She then printed up a new contract and had me sign it. After I was done signing it, Dr. Collins casually walked back into the room and
pretended that he had never been angry at all and pretended to act happy towards me as he smiled and asked if everything was fixed up with the new contract. After Dr. Collins left the room, it was then that Elizabeth told me that some part of the equipment in the back room had a failure and that was why everything was running behind schedule that day. I was not taken back to begin my procedure until 5pm (my appointment was at 3pm). I waited in the waiting room for 2 hours and 15 minutes. It was not until after my procedure was complete and I returned to the waiting room that the front desk attendants started acting personable towards me. Here is where Western Dental failed on 8/6/11 and where I question the company's professional integrity:
1. If they knew there was an equipment failure, why did they not inform me of this beforehand?
2. If they knew they were running behind schedule, why did they not inform me earlier in the day? (A phone call to the cell phone they have for me on file would have been a good gesture.)
3. If they knew they were running behind schedule, why did they wait an hour and fifteen minutes before they decided to tell me that in the waiting room?
4. Why did they not explicitly tell me that their company arbitrarily can and does change the prices on all items on a contract, regardless of whether the contract has already been signed or not?
5. Do they consider Dr. Collins's behavior towards me on 8/6/11 to be professional?
6. Do they consider their business' behavior toward me on 8/6/11 to be professional? As a result of the above, Western Dental sent me a letter in September 2011 and claimed to have issued me a $60 credit on my account. I called in to their corporate office on 10/4/11 to confirm that this credit was added and that I did not owe them any additional money (since I was making my final payment to their company on that day over the phone). They confirmed this, and confirmed the credit had been added, and said the only additional money owed was by my insurance company. Two weeks later I began receiving phone calls, about 4 times a day, sometimes as late as 7 or 8 at night, and sometimes within 10 minutes of each other. The messages they left were just for me to, "Call Western
Dental." None of the messages stated what the matter was concerning. On 10/27/11, I spent my entire lunch hour on my cell phone with Western Dental. The person I spoke with told me several things that did not make sense: 1. That I only paid about 80 something dollars when I last called the company to make a payment and that because I did not pay the remainder at that time (which was the amount that their company claimed to have credited my account on that day) I was being assessed a late fee in addition to the 60 dollars the company claimed that I owed (this should have been for the 60 dollars that Western Dental originally told me was applied as credit on my account on the same day I made my last payment). 2. That I was responsible for this remaining amount and the late fee (and the customer service representative told me during the call that she confirmed this with her supervisor).
3. That any issues with this amount had to actually be taken up with the local office, not the corporate office. I told the customer service rep with that none of that made sense and asked to speak with a supervisor. She then put me on hold for 45 minutes (until I finally was forced to hang up because my lunch hour ended) and nothing was resolved. At no point did she pick up the phone again after she claimed she was transferring me to her supervisor. At the very least, she could have picked up the line again and asked me if I wanted to call back at a different time. It is apparent to me that Western Dental, even at the corporate level, likes to lie to its customers. This is evidenced by the fact that even though they claimed they were applying a credit to my account on the same day that I made my last payment (in order to make my balance on that day a $0 balance and the remaining amount would be paid by my insurance company), they actually decided to lie to me instead and not apply that credit. They furthermore felt it was appropriate to assess a late fee to their own negligence and attempt to bill me an additional 20 something dollars for an amount that should have already been credited to my account. In addition, they love to harass their customers—this is evidenced by the fact that they decided to call me up to 4 times a day (sometimes as late as 7pm or 8pm and sometimes with calls that were within 10 minutes of each other) to attempt to claim this amount of money that I did not owe them. And on 10/28/11, Western Dental sent me an email reminding me of an appointment they claimed I had made for February. I had explicitly told the Western Dental clerk back in August that all my appointments with the company should be cancelled, but I guess they decided to ignore me. Western Dental sent me a separate email on 10/28/11 stating that the my account was being audited as a result of the email I had sent them. |
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