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    First Step Dental Orthodontics

    5.0 (1 review)
    Open • 8:00 am - 5:00 pm

    Services - First Step Dental Orthodontics

    Orthodontics

    Cavity treatment

    Dental exams

    First Step Dental Orthodontics Photos

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    Recommended Reviews - First Step Dental Orthodontics

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    9 years ago

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    First Step Dental - Treatment rooms

    First Step Dental

    3.5(41 reviews)
    0.0 mi

    I live in Modesto and make the trek to Turlock to have my children see Dr. Armita Akbarnejad or…read moresimply, Dr. A. Her office staff and dental assistants are so sweet, kind, and attentive to the children and parents. I initially reached out to Dr. A when a Modesto pediatric dentist recommended my son get anesthesia for a cavity or two. I am totally against that and this dentist wouldn't even consider laughing gas as my son is really good at dental exams. When I met Dr. A, she really listened to my concerns and recommended laughing gas to try at first. We did that and like I expected, he did so well! And Dr. A even recommended not working on the other concerns from the Modesto dentist, and he's been doing fine since then. I really appreciate and trust Dr. A and I love how they make the children as comfortable as possible and leave them with smiles on their faces with their balloon animals. Such a sweet and memorable touch! My children get excited about the dentist because they know they'll get their balloons! LOL! I highly recommend checking out Dr. A for your child(ren).

    WORST EXPERIENCE EVER…read more Zero communication, discrepancies in all of our billing and insurance. They overcharge and only when I bring in my previous paid receipts and my insurance statement showing what I SHOULD have paid and request refunds do they own up to it. Then refusal to do a simple teeth cleaning even though I have bent over backwards to get medical paperwork signed and allergy testing done for my medically complex child! Scheduling is a nightmare, then they will call you 42 min before an opening in their schedule to see if you want to move your child's appt for a last minute spot. They will quickly get you in as a new patient and then make you wait weeks or months for additional appts to fill a cavity for example instead of leaving slots open for procedures. Very backwards and misleading because I would have chosen a different dental office for my children if I knew that. They were presenting me with fees the second I walked in today, and stating my kids needed x-rays, and that it wasn't covered (despite us having blue shield) because supposedly all their preventative care covered items was used already this year. STRANGE BECAUSE one of my children had ZERO of her dental benefits used at all this year due to their insistence on wanting medical paperwork signed. Which was signed and faxed over by our clinic MULTIPLE times. I had called to explicitly request that BOTH my children get a cleaning, and they waited until we were there and the appt was supposed to start to say they could not and would not perform a cleaning on my daughter. This appt had been scheduled for over a month!!!! NO COMMUNICATION ON THEIR PARTS AT ALL. Very unprofessional and rude service. My son has had a total of 5 or 6 appts at this dentist, and the office staff has always been rude. Then after one filling, the dentist had over numbed him and long after the 2 hours of no eating had passed, his cheek was so numb he accidentally chewed it up and was in a lot of pain for 3+ days. We are so over the poor service, poor treatment, poor scheduling, poor attitudes, poor communication, over charging (seems fraudulent and if I wasn't carefully going through our insurance bills and the receipts i wonder if they would have acknowledged they overpayments and issued back the credit.) Our family is COMPLETELY DONE with this dental office. My children will not be returning. We walked out today before we even saw the Dentist. This place is awful and I highly recommend you steer clear.

    Photos
    First Step Dental - Dr Jose Juarez

    Dr Jose Juarez

    First Step Dental - Dr Armita Akbarnejad

    Dr Armita Akbarnejad

    First Step Dental - Dr Sabina Gupta

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    Dr Sabina Gupta

    Heiner Orthodontics - 40 years old

    Heiner Orthodontics

    4.8(38 reviews)
    12.6 mi

    I would recommend this Orthodontic! Dr Heiner is super friendly and polite! I feel comfortable…read moreattending this practice and the staff is friendly as well. I'm so glad I am getting my teeth worked on through him. I have definitely seen improvements with my bite.

    Sadly, I can no longer recommend this practice. My kids have been treated here for about 10 years…read morenow. My daughter's treatment went great and she finished about a year ago. My son's treatment/service has turned into a nightmare over the past year. Here's what we've been dealing with: -A high staff turnover rate. There is never the same workers when we go in. The ones we've interacted with seem very unfamiliar with my son's treatment plan. Heiner seems very impatient with staff at times even making comments to me personally about his frustrations and it makes for some awkward vibes. It was never like this until recently. - We drive 40 minutes each way to go here and have had 2 appointments in the last 2 months where we drove there for nothing. One, he called in sick as we were pulling in the parking lot for our appt. They couldn't even call me, they text me. The other, we went to the appt and they said they felt bad they should have called me and cancelled because he wasn't in and they couldn't help us. There was no respect for our wasted time what so ever. - They no longer answer the phone. I had tried to get thru several times in one day and instead of answer they text back (obv have caller id) and say they will call back. So weird and unprofessional to do biz like this. -Heiner has become frustrated with my son's lack of progress on closing a gap. Has made the comment numerous times that we are causing him to lose money because my son is over treatment time. This made me mad after about the 4th visit hearing this comment so I told him nicely to just remove the braces. He and staff were not happy about that. I was told by a worker there today that we are termed "non-compliant" now so if we need anything further they will "charge us whatever". I have no idea what she means but I don't really care anymore. We are done. -They've been telling me Heiner will call me for 2 months now. No call yet. Today I was told she can get my son an appt to just get his final retainer and end treatment but warned me of a high probability we still won't get to talk to him. To be honest, I don't really know what's going on here. Whether it's just a bad staff with bad communication or if Heiner just isn't into it anymore like he used to be I don't know. But the past year has been really bad for us and I look VERY forward to completing this treatment and being done with the place all together. The vibes are all bad and uncomfortable these days. And it makes me sad the way it is now vs. what it used to be.

    Photos
    Heiner Orthodontics - We're pleased to offer complimentary consultations at our Modesto orthodontic office. We serve patients from Oakdale, Turlock...

    We're pleased to offer complimentary consultations at our Modesto orthodontic office. We serve patients from Oakdale, Turlock...

    Heiner Orthodontics
    Heiner Orthodontics

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    First Step Dental Orthodontics - orthodontists - Updated September 2026

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