Rosa D.
Yelp
I just want to start off by saying how absolutely traumatizing & damaging this experience has been to me and my family all because I am "poor" & have no dental insurance....HAD no insurance. This has been 4 months now to complete a root canal, that according to your office manager, the dental staff are completely qualified to do. Which I also realize I am CCing her on this too! :)
I initially went in for what I thought was cavity, turned out I needed fillings & a FEW root canals. I walk in and I am greeted with "Hola como estas? como yo puedo ayudar? " or something of the sort, I can only imagine because I have BROWN skin?? I dont speak spanish, I am actually Brazilian, to me felt discriminatory. I had also come in once before just to do the X-rays and was sent away because I had my baby & was unaware I couldn't bring her back there with me. waste of gas, time & energy. Not to mention she was incredibly rude at the front desk AGAIN.
Then I had the full exam X-rays offered to be done when I finally was seen (walk-in), the dental asst. there 1st off seemed SO put out that she now had to do more X-rays on me than originally. After the 1st dentist said I need to have my fillings possibly reconstructed because they were breaking off (after being pregnant, chewing ice, not seeing a dentist for almost a year...) I was ok with it, this was in september.I scheduled my next appt for October, hoping to get it all done, when I told them I would be scheduling for all of it. she sounded surprised. Unbeknownst to me, there would be MANY appts. involved for one relatively "simple" procedure. (I have a small baby, I have to have my husband take off of work to watch her for numerous appts, costing our single income family to hurt by him missing work.) I really needed something where it was no more than 2 appts. & that was never explained to me until after they started.
When I came in for the appt. & they started to work on one tooth for the root canal, to make a long story short, the file broke off in my tooth. I have never heard of this, nor has this ever happened to me. Not only did the very sweet dentist seem totally shocked and walked off to get advice I'm sure...explained to me what happened, told me that I need to NOW go to a specialist to get it out. I went to payment desk & they told me to go to South Austin Microendodontics & that it would only cost me $50 & they will just take it out. I go there the same day to see "Meredith Overstreet DDS" then she looked at it, after I actually was told I had to pay $65, and then got NEW xrays, so probably a grand total of 20 Xrays just this day alone. After getting my X-rays, she then told me to "just go back to Manos, I should be fine & they can just continue the root canal & put a crown on it because it seems the file totally filled the root. OR I can finish the root canal with them for $720." ALL of this after I was told by Manos, that it would only be $50 & then removed!
So, I call back to Manos, telling them all of the above. They told me it should only be $50, that they would have to call them back & straighten things out. I waited, I think it was about a WEEK later that I heard back from Manos and they told me then, if I go ahead & get it done at Micro. that it would be the $250, then come back to Manos after getting the file removed, and they won't charge me up to the $250. I asked to speak with the office manager and she had to call me back. If I recall correctly, this was also ANOTHER week later. Meaning between MY birthday, SONS birthday, I had a temporary filling with a file still in my tooth waiting for this call to tell me what I needed to do! When she did call me and told me THE exact same thing. I asked then would I be responsible for any difference above the $250. She didn't seem to understand what I was asking, I tried to rephrase it, then got frustrated by her telling me the same thing over and over, which was not answering what I was asking. I then hung up out of pure frustration. I didn't hear back, ever again. Last week was the first time I had called again,requesting my X-rays to be emailed to me. The lady who answered first spelled my email wrong, so then sent it to the wrong email. The second I called and spoke with today confirmed wrong email. So very possibly someone has my personal info/X-rays, its taken longer than 3 days to email them to me, when the other place took 1 minute.
While I still have a temporary filling with the file in my tooth 4 months later. Spent all my money toward getting this worked out & leaving me to not know what to do. The issue wasn't really the money in the long run, but more the fact that I didn't want to have to come in to use your facility ever again. Obviously, unlike the office manager said, your staff are not FULLY qualified to do specific procedures..... i.e. "obstruction removal"! The office manager couldn't have been more rude, belittling everything, talking down