My wife went in for dental work. The procedure was submitted to our insurance company from her last dentist appointment. This appointment was to finish the procedure. We received the summary from our insurance company in the mail a week or so before the appointment. The day of the appointment we received a bill in the mail from the dentist. When my wife showed up for the appointment, the dental office indicated that she needed to pay what was owed right then. My wife explained that we had just received the bill at home that day and that we usually mail in a check, but the dentist office wanted the money right then. My wife does not carry a checkbook with her, so she had to pay on credit, but was NOT told that they charge an extra 2.99% for a credit card change. When I was able to contact the dental office, I asked them to take the charge off of my credit card and I would send a check in the mail as I normally do. They refused and said that I had to bring them a check before they would cancel the credit charge. I refused to do this. I also asked why we had to pay more via credit. They said that there are notices all over their office about this (it's on the mailed bill too). However, I never noticed or considered this because we always paid our bill via check when it came in the mail. I would like to add that we have never been overdue on any of our payments. With this disagreement I indicated that I already talked to our bank and had the number of their fraud department and that I would contact the BBB about this strong arm tactic. We had no previous notice that the money we owed would need to be paid that day! Anyway, my wife went in with a check after this disagreement and they refunded the extra 2.99% they charged in cash and told us that due to the threats of calling our bank's fraud department and the BBB we are no longer patients. The dentist is great, but how do you deal with an office manager only focused on money and not the care of the patients. read more
