I had contacted the Stuart office to arrange full arch dental implants for my daughter - basically pulling all of her teeth, inserting threaded anchors into her jaw and then installing permanent false teeth screwed into the anchors - a big deal.
My daughter is developmentally disabled and in a lot of pain from her teeth. So we needed this done quickly.
Their customer service is maybe the best I have ever experienced - they were extremely easy to deal with. So we expected that quality to continue into their practice.
We went in for an evaluation and were told that Aspen Dental in Florida has only one oral surgeon who travels between all of their offices in the state and we would have to wait until he was in town again to have her evaluated for oral surgery. Awesome - we set a date and time about a month away and they prescribed her Ibuprofen and an antibiotic in the mean time.
This is where the disconnect began.
The ibuprofen never worked at all, and she completed the course of antibiotics in the time allotted before the next appointment. So she's still getting tooth and jaw pain and we could not get them to prescribe anything, even Ibuprofen, for these ongoing issues.
And a week before the appointment I get an email stating that the oral surgeon could not see her on the date and time agreed upon. And instead of the option to reschedule with their office, the email included a referral form signed by a dentist, and they gave us three oral surgery offices we could go to with whom they have worked in the past. Okay fine - I understand - they couldn't do the job in time, so they were giving us further options.
One of the offices they provided us was closed down completely, one was not an oral surgery practice, and the third was 85 miles away.
We got in touch with them the next day to inform them of these issues, and the receptionist just completely blew us off. No explanation at all. They wouldn't treat my daughter. She even called and told them she was in pain and could they help. Nothing.
We are talking about a procedure costing upwards of $70,000 that I'm paying cash for. A large amount of revenue for any dental practice. Business must be fantastic to turn away a patient like that.
The entire time we dealt with them everything seemed fine, and there was never an issue or problem which might lead to a blow off. They just turned 180º and that was that.
So yeah - to say they wasted our time during a severe toothache is being kind. It's been 5 days now since last contact, and she still has the toothache, is having difficulty eating, is waking up every few hours at night and asking me for help, and we have been forced to scramble to find alternative treatment options.
The quality of their customer service in no way extends into their actual dental practice. The way we were greeted and the way we were treated were like night and day.
The only thing I can think of is that the oral surgeon didn't have the skills to do the work.
Or maybe they prefer patients who have to borrow for the procedures and wind up paying them interest in addition to the principal over an extended period of time?
But again - we were never given a reason.
Now we are using a different local provider and will be paying probably $20,000 more than the Aspen estimate because it can't be done in one office. We have to hire a cosmetic dentist and an outside oral surgeon, who will each bill us more money than I make in a year.
I am not happy. I believe what they did was callous and unprofessional. I'd at least like an explanation so I can determine what action to take. Is there something I'm missing? Was it a series of errors they had no control over? WTF? Who does business like that, especially a medical practice?
At the very least, I can write this review and inform others of the experience we had with Aspen Dental's Stuart, Florida location. If you use Aspen Dental I hope you have a better experience than we did.
Oh and Aspen? Don't bother replying to this on here to try to do damage control - I think you're a lousy practice and there is nothing you can say or offer to change my mind. The time to do right by us was a month ago. read more