Sketchy...
I've been…read moregoing to this clinic for about 3 years. It's in an unassuming little building along lower Henderson that I've driven by about 2,250 times without ever noticing that it's there. When my longtime dentist in Lakewood went out of network with Delta Dental, I found this place, which is in the Delta network.
When I made my first appointment, I did find it odd that I had to wait a few weeks, while the dentist I was going to see awaited "recredentialing" from the insurance company - a term I was unfamiliar with. Also, they required an up-front $50 deposit, which I had also never encountered. But I haven't been a new patient anywhere in about 25 years, maybe that's the new normal.
So 3 years go by, my dentist (who has since left) seemed solid. I had a few checkups and one crown to replace several deteriorating childhood fillings in the same tooth. It wasn't perfect at first, but the doc did some shaping and it seems okay now. They did always seem eager to push me toward expensive treatments with specialists, but I'm getting older, and those may be totally legit. Who knows?
And then my company changed insurance providers from Delta to Blue Cross/Blue Shield. I called weeks before my next appointment to verify they accepted my insurance. "Oh sure, we take that" they assured me. A few days before my checkup, they text and ask for pictures of the front and back of my insurance card, which I happily send to them. I have my checkup, everything's great, I schedule my next one, take my free toothbrush and go home. A few weeks later, I get a bill for $78 for my routine checkup that should be fully covered by insurance. So I call, and they tell me that while the new dentist is (you guessed it) awaiting recredentialing with BCBS, I'm "temporarily out of network". So they knew this the whole time I was asking them about my new provider and sending them my insurance info 3 DAYS BEFORE MY APPOINTMENT, and nobody bothered to say "hey, we do accept BCBS, but you're out of network right now, it's going to cost you $80, unless you wait until you're back in network". How hard could that have been??? I guess if you'd rather have my $80 than have me as a patient going forward, it's pretty hard.