I worked for UC Davis for a few years and Dr. Menicou was the only dentist I used in Davis. He was friendly, talkative and surprisingly young. Getting my teeth cleaned there was fine.
However, I had two cavities between my back molars on each side of my lower jaw. He put in fillers. I was in pain for a few weeks. I went back in and he said that slight pain is not rare, and gave me a tube of Sensadyne toothpaste, which he said would help numb the nerves. He made sure to repeat that he was "comping" me the tooth paste. Gee thanks.
The pain didn't go away, and so I went back to him again. He redid the fillers because he determined that there was too much contact between the molars. SO much so that I couldn't get floss between them. So, he redid the fillers and didn't charge me. The pain went away. Which means that he didn't do a good job the first time.
Well, I have moved to a different city and have a different dentist now. They took my x-rays and said the fillings were not very good. Besides the fact that the contact is still too close (but not painful), part of the filler has an edge - a remnant from when Dr. Menicou fixed my fillers, and took off a bit too much. My newer dentist has told me that these fillers won't last long and they'll have to be redone.
Finally, to top off my displeasure, I realized the Dr. Menicou has an interesting pricing policy. Basically, he charges you a set fee regardless of what your insurance pays. So, he charged me $300 for my botched fillers. Only in talking to two other dentists have I realized that this is not so common. Dr. Menicou charges you a set fee, and then gets as much as he can from insurance. Most dentists approach pricing from the other direction. They will figure out the actual costs of the procedure (which can vary by tooth and filling type) then deduct what the insurance will cover. The remaining amount is what you pay. And it's usually not a perfectly round number.
Finally, my newer doctor has a camera stick to take photos of the top of my molars, to show me particular issues, like the start of a cavity, wear from grindng, etc. I find this much more informative and trust-building, then just taking my dentist's word for it that I need particular work done (like in Dr. Menicou's case).
Dr. Menicou wants to have a good reputation, and I'm sure he wants to be a good dentist. He didn't push products or procedures on me. But in the end, he did a really bad job once, a bad job a second time, caused me a month of pain, 2.5 days of missed work, and $300 out of my pocket. And what do I have to show for this? Fillers that need to be replaced within a few years.
Check www.daviswiki.org for other local opinions - he is not very popular there. read more