I wished there is a MINUS 5 star on Yelp, and only that can represent how horrible my experience was with Dr Ali.
short version:
1, Can he read X-ray?
He missed the deep cavity, which was obvious even to his hygienist (I later visited my friend's dentist and also my new dentist, they all spotted the cavity on the first visit). He said there was a tiny cavity on other tooth, but I had two teeth infected, the one he ignored was much more serious. Because of this delay and ignorance, I suffered another 3 month, before it got to a point where root canal and a crown were inevitable.
2, Of course, he wants out-of-patient's pocket money.
Instead, he recommended an expensive night guard, with a price over than 500 bucks (by the way, other dentists usually ask for 200), and the insurance did not cover a cent for this. It was all because he subjectively thought that my tooth pain was from anxiety and grinding, and his speculation was not based on x-ray results.
3,
After I insisted to fix my pain, he did fill my less severe cavity, but he did a lousy and perfunctory job, where he did not adjust the high filling - surely increasing my grinding behaviors in the future. He also did not clean up the tartar on the surface- because of his unfishied work, it costed me another 100 dollars later to fix the same tooth.
4, Oh boy, how dare he charged me this much?
The comparison:
Dr Ali : regular x-ray + teeth cleaning + 1 cavity (not severe, even he said so)= 625 dollars
my current dentist: 7 cavities (including 2 moderate deep) + a Crown Tooth !!!+ regular x-ray + teeth cleaning = 789 dollars.
5,He asked me to pay another 300 bucks eight months later, even when I received all the copay document from my insurance company last year and both of us did pay our share?
I mean, my insurance covered 80-90% of the tooth filling and cleaning and 100% with the x-ray, which means plus the 125 dollars I co-paid last November should cover everything. Well, how could you just make up another 300 bucks for me to pay?
Here is the whole story. If you were like me, being new in Antioch area and heavily relying on Yelp to find the right dentist, please look further, expand your search scope to even Concord, you can find a real professional, but definitely stay away from dramas in this place!
Yes, at the beginning he promised free check-up and partial x-ray (believe me, he will request you to have a full x-ray the next visit), but things went horribly wrong for my formal visit (Nov 2017) -- I had bad pain on my left molar teeth but I did not which one or two. After the x-ray and tooth cleaning, the hygienist showed me two teeth had cavities. However, Dr A insisted that I did not have any urgent issue with cavity, and he said my pain was due to tooth grinding - and the root cause was anxiety. His solution was using night guard, even after he looked the full x-ray result. Although the hygienist reminded him that there were two cavities, he only fixed the less severe one and left me this message: "Your pain will come back if you don't wear night guard. " (In retrospect, he was partially right - yes, the pain would not go away, but just because you did not fix the cavity.)
Within a month, I went to Tennessee for Thanksgiving, and my friend's 30-year-experienced dentist checked my tooth and was surprised that Ali did not treat my cavity, as it was deep enough to almost get to the nerves and he used the same x-ray results Ali sent to him. The dentist treated my tooth, and adjusted the surface to match the bottom tooth, that was when i realized that Ali did not do this step and left my filled tooth too high in its position. The Tennessee dentist warn me that maybe the treatment was not enough if the nerve keeps inflamed, and be prepare for root canal.
In another two month, I had a new dentist T. Up till then the tooth pain was unbearable, and Dr T recommended an endodontist to perform root canal surgery on me and then he himself checked my teeth thoroughly, sugestting me to have all the cavities fixed (including the one Dr Ali fixed, because he did not get all the parts, especially the tartars on the surface). There were 7 cavities and teeth cleaning,and Dr T only chrage for less than 800 bucks, with a co-pay less than 300 dollars (since crown tooth is only 50% coverage). By contrast, Dr Ali charged me 625 dollars for just one cavity and tooth cleaning. I was speechless when I realized how Dr Ali overpriced his practice.
I was a lazy person when it comes to write reviews, but sometimes I was wondering if most of his patients were tricked by his "first time" good impression - surely hard working and friendly, that was why so many good reviews were posted about him. But I do think it is necessary for people in similar situations to know more about this Dr, hence, here is my first ever detailed review on Yelp. read more