Dont go here for dentures…read more..
Started out good, initially, they were very friendly and made me feel comfortable, but everything started to turn into a big runaround pretty quick. I had oral surgery at Carle and had all of my uppers extracted for a top denture, and it has been a nightmare for the last 9 months. I had no idea what the process was for getting dentures, so I did not know that we weren't doing this correctly..
First of all, Dr. Frerichs never took any wax impressions, and he never did a bite registration to see how my teeth are supposed to meet, all they ever did was take an initial X-ray and use a tray to get a starter mold of the roof of my mouth, and that wasn't done correctly because it was angled wrong. it's still angled wrong. after the hard reline.
When I found out the date of my consult, I called and told them the date, but they wrote that down as the day of my procedure, and went ahead and made my dentures, 3 months early, and charged 2k for an immediate denture package (Which I still dont have the paperwork for) So my denture sat there for several months before my procedure.
After the procedure, I went in several times to have bone spicules removed. Eventually, they took 1 pano x-ray and he said "I COULD open that up and take some more of those out, but it would be pretty nasty" .. okay? so I guess just leave all those bone pieces in there for me to chew on every day.. no biggie right?
I had the immediate denture looked several times; I had a few questions about it, like: My teeth dont even meet in the back, like at all, still to this day, because we never took a bite registration.. the molars on the inside edge of the denture dont even touch my bottom teeth. I asked if he could make sure the teeth were set right something didnt seem right. He said "I wont be making a second pair"
All I want is the denture I paid for to fit. I told him several times that we needed to use Pressure Indicating Paste and Articulating paper to fix the issues with my denture, and instead he kept doing this trial-and-error grinding session in the back, in between other patients and getting increasingly frustrated that it wasnt fitting.
Every appointment I left there without my denture fitting right.
He had other patients to get to, they already got my money, I guess.
Now that all of my top teeth are extracted, it's a big guessing game as to how they're supposed to fit.. he tried grinding the denture several appts to try to get my teeth fit correctly, but one day after about an hour of this trial-and-error grinding (I asked for articulating paper, again to check the bite, and pressure indicating paste to show him it still doesn't fit on the inside either, and he looked at me like i had 3 heads. he never used the PIP and only did the articulation paper sideways on one side of my mouth, not seeing if all the teeth met properly) eventually he got frustrated that they weren't fitting, and then he said, "we aren't saving your bottom teeth anyway, right?" and started grinding down parts of my real teeth to make the fake teeth fit... wtf man! After that I didn't ask him to try and make them fit anymore.
I then received a bill from them for one of the soft relines that was supposed to be included in my denture package. When I asked about it they said it would be fixed. I said lets just credit my account for any future work if that's easier. When they emailed back showing a different, much lower amount than they mistakenly billed me, I contacted the office again and showed them my receipt, my insurance statement, my credit card statement, all the math that you needed to see that showed I have paid X amount. They said let me talk to so and so about it. several weeks went by.. I called the office and the person who answered said they dont handle billing that person isnt there right now.. so I said have them email me. They emailed me trying to play more games so I had to dispute the charge with my credit card company for the amount the billed me in error. The credit card company contacted frerichs office and then gave me a conditional credit while they investigated, and dr frerichs had 90 days to respond to them. And of course, you know what they did, they knew they were in the wrong, and that it would get refunded, but just to be pricks they waited the entire 90 days for the judgement to go into default before I got my money back.
They made me wait the 90 days instead of just correcting it. You know, because THEY erred. And my denture still isn't right. what a joke.
Now, my insurance has a several year waiting period before it will cover a new denture, one that's made correctly... unless, I go to another dentist and ask them for a second opinion, and they say it is not made correctly, not functional, and my insurance company will have to get involved. Or, go out of pocket...
I'll never go to this place again. I wont even call for my records, the next office can deal with them. I'm so beyond over this