My husband was diagnosed with ALS in June 2020. As a result, I have not been paying a lot of attention to other things going on around me. On February 8th of 2021 on my way home from Sunnybrook Hospital, I received a phone call from the dentist office to inform me (quite rudely) that I owed an outstanding balance from September 2020. I was surprised as I had been with them for years and our insurance had always been billed directly. When I was home, I checked my records and found out that I had indeed been paid by my insurance for not only a September appointment but also my appointment on February 6, 2021. I called the office the very next day and transferred the money owed. I asked how this could have happened and was informed that someone at their office had made the change in error. I was assured that it would be fixed. During my appointment on the 6th of February I mentioned that my husband had become non verbal so could they please put on his record to call me with any questions and not him. Assured that this would happen, but not sure after the billing mix up I reiterated on Monday February 8th during my phone conversation to call only me and not my husband since he was now non verbal. Again on Tuesday February 9th when I paid the outstanding bill, I asked them to check my instructions were posted in my husband's and my chart. I was assured everything was done. On Saturday, February 13, 2021 I received a statement of account that had been sent out on February 8, 2021 (the day they notified me about the billing issue) with a note threatening me with collections if I did not contact them immediately. On Thursday February 18, 2020, the office called my husband to reschedule his upcoming appointment. Since he could not talk to them (again NON VERBAL) he sent me a panic text to call the dental office. I decided to ask to speak with the office manager to get this all sorted once and for all. I questioned her about the collections threat I had received from them and she told me there was no way I received that from their office, I told her I could scan it and send it to her but she just kept repeating that they did not send anything to me...then I questioned her about why they were calling my husband when the records reflected that they should be calling me....she said due to privacy laws they couldn't talk to me. I asked her why no one had said that to me before and she just kept saying privacy laws! I advised her that I guess his appointment would not get rescheduled since he is NON VERBAL and all of a sudden privacy laws didn't matter and she was able to talk to me.....I advised her neither one of us would be returning to her office. read more