Unprofessional dentist office

[Rahmota]

Ok now the sucky person is many in this one. I had taken a few days to try and calm down but I guess thats just not in the cards.

A little background. I am unfortunately on caresource. A state assisted HMO for those who make to much to be on full assistence and dont make enough to be off on their own.

Way back in September I had a problem with a tooth where I was going to need a filling. Well th dentist I had been goign to for over 15 years was not covered by them and no amount of begging pleading or jumping through hoops would let me go back to him and have the HMO pay. So i had to o to the one they told me to.

In October I call to make an appointment with the HMO dentist. Hereafter refered to as Dr quack. I call the office and go through the new patient rigamarole and inform them I am caresource. The receptionist goes "Oh ok" And sets my appointment for December 4th. I ask if there's anythign sooner and she goes not in your patient classification. (I didnt pursue that line of reasoning even though I should have.)

Cue the 4th. I get there at 0800 the time of my appointment. I'm the only one in the lobby so I give my card to the receptionist and start filling the paperwork out. She then gets on speakerphone to run my insurance verification letting me and if anyone else was in the lobby hear my personal info. I ask her if she could not use speakerphone and she says in a rather snotty tone. That its ok there's no one here anyhow." The thing is that she did this to some other people after the lobby had more people in it. Strike 1 for not being concerned about security and privacy procedures.

So 15 minutes after my scheduled time I get called back to have some Xrays taken. I get dropped in the seat with the old ray gun style xray machine and have to put up with the nurse shoving her nasty latex covered fingers in my mouth to adjust the film cartridges so she could get the pictures. I almost wound up barfing and all she said when she saw me gaggin was "Dont throw up on me ok?" So she takes 2 images on the left side, 2 images on the right side. Then has me stand up and do the around the head Xray. So thats 5 exposures to Xrays right now. then I get led back into a curtained off cubicle (my old dentist had private rooms for everybody) that has the tools and stuff setting all over the place very cluttered. (my old dentist had the tools and gizmos all nice and neatly hidden behind panels and doors in his rooms)

Well I'm sitting there when the nurse comes back and says that one of the exposures was blurry and she needs to retake it. So that makes 6 exposures total. Strike 2 for excessive radiation exposure.

So anyhow I'm now sitting there when the nurse comes back and drops me back into the reclined position and starts gettign things set up. The doctor comes in and before I even gt a good mornign out the nurses says in a loud snotty voice "Hes a Caresource" to the point where the people in the next cubicle over could hear it. The conversation goes downhill from there.

Dr quack: Well then. According to your xray you need a root canal since you let this go too long.
ME: I made an appt back in oct.
DRQ: Well its too late now and since caresource doesnt cover root canal the only thing I can do is extract it.
ME: What?
DRQ: Well unless you have an extra $729 laying around all i can do is pull it. Said while chortling heartily with the nurse.
ME: (Heres where I got a bit snarky sicne I missed my mornign coffee for this.) So i guess poor people aint supposed to have teeth then?
DRQ: Well you can either live with the pain or I can pull it your choice.
ME: Fine pull the GD thing.

He then proceeds to stab me in the gums and roof of the mouth with the novacaine needle Waits for the novacaine to be just barely effective and then yanks the tooth out. I could have gotton whiskeyd up and had my cousin do the same thing for me.

DRQ: Well there you go sport. Do you need a sticker? (Referring to the scooby doo stickers they give kids since I let out some yelps of pain during the procedure)

My response is not goign to be repeated since I had my mouth packed full of gauze to staunch the bleeding no one totally understood me. But it was not polite and is probabley better off being lost to the mists of time. Suffice to say his response was thats easy for you to say" And off he was to the next poor soul.

Strikes 3 4 5 6 and the entire inning.

The nurse then gives me the prescription he already had wrote out for vicodin and makes and appointment for january for a cleaning.

I know saying what I did to him may not have been the brightest of ideas and all but the way I was getting treated around there was very grumpiness causing. Being rushed from place to place, acting like I'm a bum because I'm not a self pay or expensive insurance and generally the doctor rushing in and then back out like hes trying to shove as many patients through as he possibly can before his tee time. Not to mention his entirely poor chairside manner. I am definately gogin to file a complaint with several people. And I dont care what it takes I'll do it myself or just live with it before I go back there.

[flybye023]

I was just talking to my mom who's an x-ray tech in a hospital and she suggests a couple of things.


1) Speakerphone: blatant HIPPA violation. Whether or not anyone was in the waiting room with you is irrelevant.

2) If you were actually in pain in October when you made the appointment, he should have tried to get you in immediately. Waiting until December 4 was inappropriate. (Mom wasn't sure if this was any violation but certainly bad dentistry)

3) Nurse loudly proclaiming your Caresource status: another HIPPA violation.

You could technically sue over HIPPA so I think in this situation that is your strongest argument.

[Rahmota]

flybye023: Thank you very much on the info. I wasn't sure if it was an actual legal violation or just a bad attitude. So it definately looks like I'll be reporting them for all this tomorrow. Caresource and the state to start with.Thank you again.

And I most definately am not going to be going back there.

[chainedbarista]

definitely; there are many violations of hippa there, so on those grounds alone, you could get them. the extra radiation exposure might be another one; blurry pictures my butt-she should be competent enough to take decent shots the first time, if not, she shouldn't be shooting them.

the overall treatment is another issue; if he's independant, it might be a hard issue to press, but if he has other partners invested in the business, he has no right to risk their share by acting like an ass and mistreating you; i'm sure that extraction wasn't the only solution, they should have this worked out much better than that.

making you wait almost two months is also inexcusable; regardless of your situation, they should get you in asap, rather than making you wait, you're a patient in need, after all.

you might want to file a complaint with the hmo or applicable source; i don't think they'd want funds going to people who are this half assed.

rahmota, you weren't sucky; you were used, abused and disgregarded and that isn't just unprofessional, it's unethical.

[Rahmota]

Ok thanks again for the info.

I'm not sure what I can get them for as the HMO should pay for the extraction (if they dont then thats a whole nuther ball of wax) and they can't exactly put the tooth back in. But here it is Wednesday night and my jaw still hurts and is swollen from this, the only problem is I dont think there's enough damage done for a malpractice suit. I'm not spectacularly injured that I can tell, my hair isnt falling out so I didnt get radiation poisoning bad enough and the bleeding has stopped, though I did feel like hell on Monday afterwards and pretty much slept until tuesday morning. Although any trouble I can make for that "dentist" would be good.

Which speaking of which I have the forms downloaded to my computer to file a grievance with my state dental board which handles liscences for all dentist and related folks in Ohio. I also have the forms to do the same with Caresource but if I read their website right I can just call them tomorrow during business hours to file a grievance about my treatment. I am also going to give it another swing to get my old dentist who knows his stuff a lot better to be approved for anything else I may need. I doubt it will work as Dr Quack is the only one approved by them for my area, but hey who knows.

Oh well here's hoping thigns work themselves out. I had bad vibes about that place but let myself be dragged along because i didn't think I had any options available. Everytime I built up enough money to pay out of pocket for my old dentist somethign came up diverting those funds. And the HMO kept telling me they wouldnt authorize my old dentist either. Arrrrrgggghhh!

[Rahmota]

well i've had a busy and effective morning.

the HMO is goign to investigate the situation and the nice lady at the other end of the phone this morning was shocked and appalled at the behavior of the folks at Dr Quacks' office. She was sorry that there was nothign that could have been done about getting me back with my old dentist but we did find another one in the area that is taking new patients. she also told me that the HMO does not flat out deny all root canals but looks at the situational factors and the doctor has to submit each claim. So Dr Quack flat out lied to me and just didnt want to take the time to submit a claim. Which is supposedly only a few minutes consult with the HMO over the phone. I am sure that Dr Quack could have spared that much time but just didnt want to.

She also agreed that the HIPPA violations where a serious issue and that the way they handled things was way way outside the bounds of professional respect.

So all in all the HMO is not a happy camper with him and is defiantely going to be investigating Dr Quack and filing their own complaint with the state dental board.

The state dental board confirmed that I have to file any and all grieveances in writing but those documents are going out in the afternoon mail run so thats cool.

The local health department said they do not inspect or otherwise deal with doctor's offices and couldn't help me.

The BBB said they could only take complaints about billing practices.

I called the Dr Quack office themselves to cancel my appointment and when they asked me why I told them they where unprofessional, rude and I did not appreciate being talked down to or treated like cattle just because I didn't have a lot of money. The lady on the other end said and I am quoting here" Well I'm sorry you misperceived things around here, is there anything we can do to keep you as a patient?" And she said it in that falsly sweet stab you in the back female canine voice. So I told her what they could do, "Have the staff there learn professional behavior, not to talk down to people wheather they have money or not and to try and not treat your patients like cattle being herded from place to place as quickly as you can so the doctor can make his tee time." and then slammed the phone down. Slightly sucky I know but I feel a little better now.

Oh well. I guess that which does not kill us only makes us stronger in the end.

[mrtauntaun]

Keep us informed! Dr. Quack should not be allowed to get away with this.

[AFpheonix]

Does this guy have any other complaints against him with the Board?

[Crosshair]

Yes, please do keep us updated. If things went the way you said, I am sure that that dentist is going to have trouble. I guess they feel they can get away with it since, "you're just a poor person" and you won't report them. My dentist has seperate rooms for each doctor/patient. The receptionist has a headset for making such calls and even has a privacy screen on the monitor. (So you can't look at it from an angle.) They do play the most anoying country music there though, but if it makes them happy and gets the job done I can put up with that. They leave you a large pile of good magazines (Not the crappy ones that the hospital seems to have all the time.) to read while they let the novacaine kick in as well.

[chainedbarista]

i knew that bastard (pardon the word) was lying; insurances and hmo's will discuss options based on what's allowed; they did that with my crowns, and there's not reason why a root canal vs. extraction wouldn't be the same way.

lying to a patient is unethical; this guy has probably compromised his future by being an abusive ass; karma kicks in.

keep us informed; this whole practice is in need of a boot to the backside!

[Rahmota]

Ok well the papers went in the mail this afternoon for the formal state grievance. So when I know more you'll know more.

A quick public records search revealed that Dr quack did have a complaint against him back in 1997, just the one official on record though.

1 count of standards of care violations
reprimanded, placed on 3 years probation, must keep an associate doctor on staff at all times.

I thought something was "wrong" with the place and the treatment but since my old dentist had made sure everything was cool and actually sat and talked to you to make sure you where comfortable I was kinda spoiled by a true professional (which looking his record up showed no complaints at all in the 20 years he's had his liscence) who cared more about his patients than his bottom line.

And chainedbarista that is definately politer than what I refer to him as.

[Crosshair]

The thing is, extraction isn't that much cheaper than a root canal when you figure the possible complications (Infection, etc.), the extra "happy pills" they have to give you, as well as the cost of dentures over time. That is certianly one of those areas where it would be done on a case by case basis.

Since the HMO would have no record of him callin to ask if a root canal would be covered. (Because he never did call) It would be simple to prove that he took the easy way out. Good to hear that you are taking actions and not letting someone like this get away with abusing the system.

[ditchdj]

The dentist that pulled my first wisdom tooth was an arrogant asshole. Jabbed the needle in and yanked it out. However, I didnt have any pain or jaw swelling after the novocaine wore off.

[ladodger34]

The thing is, extraction isn't that much cheaper than a root canal when you figure the possible complications (Infection, etc.), the extra "happy pills" they have to give you, as well as the cost of dentures over time. That is certianly one of those areas where it would be done on a case by case basis.

From my understanding, a good dentist uses extraction as a last option type of thing. One of my wisdom teeth cracked and became infected last spring. It wasn't a pretty site (swollen lymph node to go along with it).

When I went in for the initial consult, the dentist pretty much told me that only reason he was pulling it was because it couldn't be saved and it was a wisdom tooth. He told me that he didn't like pulling teeth as a general rule because it makes the tooth above or below it useless as well.

[Pagan]

But here it is Wednesday night and my jaw still hurts and is swollen from this, the only problem is I dont think there's enough damage done for a malpractice suit. I'm not spectacularly injured that I can tell, my hair isnt falling out so I didnt get radiation poisoning bad enough and the bleeding has stopped, though I did feel like hell on Monday afterwards and pretty much slept until tuesday morning. Although any trouble I can make for that "dentist" would be good.

You really don't need to worry about radiation poisoning from 6 x-rays. You would have to get a lot for that to happen, like thousands. The bigger concern is that your mouth was still hurting, swollen, and bleeding two days later! That is not normal. I've had a lot of dental work done and the only time I had swelling for a prolonged period of time was when I had my 2nd molars out, and that was because they hadn't erupted yet.

From my understanding, a good dentist uses extraction as a last option type of thing. One of my wisdom teeth cracked and became infected last spring.

Yeah, I had one crack on me a few years ago, but it didn't get infected. Wound up going to an oral surgeon to have it taken out due to it being canted over to the side (I have horrible teeth). He was great! I can tolerate a lot of pain in my mouth (mainly because novacaine sets up on me fast, but wears off fast, too) and he noticed that I was tensing up a little and immediately put more novacaine in. He said there was absolutely no reason for me to have any pain. He even called to check on me that afternoon! But I did manage to make him wince by mentioning that I had two crown preps done at the same time.

I really need to find a new dentist. I have trust issues because I had been going to mine from the time I was 3 until I was about 30. One thing for sure, if they even look like they're gonna try to use gas, I'll be out of there so fast!