I'm going to post this review for both District Smiles and Mint Dental, since they're two locations…read moreof the same business and dentists work at both locations.
First, the people who work here are really, really nice which is why I had been willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. But their scheduling, business, and billing practices have made it so I never ever want to go back.
In July, I went in for a checkup and was told that I needed a crown replacement. The crown didn't hurt and I was preparing for an extended trip and super busy but they assured me that they had a new procedure in which they take off the old crown, scan the tooth, and then 3-D print the permanent crown and install it *all in the same day*. Cool, right?
EXCEPT, day of, they....couldn't work the scanner. Not that the scanner was broken (had them confirm this in the aftermath, while trying to figure out what went wrong and who was at fault)--The people that the practice had scheduled to work the procedure could not figure out how to use it--they spent what seemed like hours trying to scan my mouth (this sucked, by the way, and hurt) and produced such a giant file that it wouldn't upload to the 3-D printer. So, after hours of waiting, they slapped on a (badly placed) temp crown, and sent me on my way to come back and do they whole thing again a week later--this time with Dr. Kassem, who might be the only person in the practice who knows how to work the machine.
But you know what? Even after all of that, I went back and had a filling done a week later--they were that nice! The filling, and the crown, once it was in, have been fine: this is not a review of the actual dentistry, only how they run the business.
I've been burned--badly--by dentist/insurance stuff before, so I made sure that they preauthorized the procedure with my insurance and asked for a guarantee that the quoted and billed price would be the final. I was assured that it was, and assumed my balance was zero.
This week, *six months later*, I got--via email, totally without explanation---a random link to a bill for $34. I couldn't even log in to see what it was for (their billing software is pretty janky and doesn't look secure--I thought it was spam at first) so I called them and, very nicely, they told me that insurance had not covered one part of the procedure (which may have been their fault, actually) and very nicely asked me to pay the balance.
After all of that, and over $34, I lost it. It may be petty of me, but it's also petty (and possibly unethical) of them, especially since the procedure itself was a nightmare.
Why would they wait so long to bill me, without any explanation, over a botched procedure, and renegging on their guarantee of up-front pricing? And then, even after I questioned them about this, why would they double down, especially given that they had been at fault?
It felt like a shakedown, honestly. I paid it, but i will never, ever, ever go back again, no matter how nice--$34 this time could be $340 (or hell, $3400) next time, and I'm not taking any chances.
So, the actual dentistry is fine (ultimately), the people are great, but practices--in multiple ways--are sloppy enough to give me pause. I need a dental practice I can trust, and this ain't it.