I've had four children go through this provider. It has its good points and bad points.
Good points: The office is like a well oiled machine. From the check-in, check-out and the 15 or so chairs they have setup, they get you in, seen, and out. The dentists are nice and seem to know what they are doing.
Bad points: This is where I'm more critical of this business and many others along the same vein. It's all about money to support the 15 chairs, technicians, and office support staff. (This is seriously a major time operation.) How is it all about money? Let's talk examples:
1) When I had my orthodontics many years back, bonded retainers were the norm for the bottom to keep those teeth in place. It was part of the treatment. These bonded retainers cost around $0.75/ea (that's the little silver retainer itself.). It was a part of the cost of finishing up braces. Now? You get a "credit" of $200 off of a $640 cost for getting one of these if you choose to instead of the nightly retainers that you wear. Want to talk about markup? Yeah, there's some labor, but $639.25 worth? No.
2) Three kids went through here and my wife and I balked at the extra $440 for bonded retainer cost for the first kid that got braces removed. So, we allowed her to get nightly retainers, which she didn't wear. Guess what? Her teeth moved. So, chalk up another set of braces going on plus a $440 retainer to the tune of $1100 more. Just cause the orthodontist wants to charge $440 for a $0.75 piece of steel.
(Kudos to them for at least waiting part of the "charge" to put the braces back on to the non-compliant child, but we're still having to shell out $1100 because they can't include a $0.75 steel bracket as part of the "package", and instead want $440 for it!)
3) Did I mention the other two kids need the $440 charge too? So, even though we thought we'd paid everything off, we now start 2019 having to pay $440 x 3 kids for retainers, plus $700 to get another kid's braces back on. That's $2000 AFTER we paid for treatment fees already.
4) We have our forth 12-year-old daughter getting "phase 1" braces and might have to go through this all over again with "phase two" later. Yet more surprise costs. No retainer here because she's only 12.
5) My wife and I both work full time. We seriously love late day appointments. The office only allows certain "types" of appointments to happen early in the morning for some reason (probably due to their assembly-line 15 patients at a time business model). Do you know how much work our family had to miss because of Smiles Forever's inflexibility regarding this?
In summary:
The office needs to be better up front about the total cost of treatment. Especially when you have four kids like I have going through your office. Back in the day when I had braces, it was a total cost of treatment, paid up front out of my FSA, no surprises. I didn't have any extra costs along the way, and when the braces came off, the bonded retainer went on, and I went on my merry way. Not anymore. We leave Smiles forever paying much more out of pocket after we have initially paid for service.
Also, they need to really understand that working families can't bring a kid to a 9AM appointment for a certain procedure. I don't think they really understand this, and think that certain families have a stay at home parent who can bring kids to appointments whenever. This isn't the case for many families who have dual careers to keep their families afloat.
I can only say this: Be very careful with this provider and get ALL costs throughout treatment including things like the bonded that happen after you pay them for the "total package". I encourage Smiles Forever to really evaluate the $640 cost for this bonded retainer. Wholesale, they're making a bundle off this one charge alone. read more
