My hygienist Tam, who's amazing - is the one & ONLY reason I was a patient of this dentistry for over 21 years - since long before its purchase by D.D.S's Souzan Roshan Ardalan from Peter Spennato. In the years since 2011, when Souzan Ardalan litigiously wrested the business from Peter Spennato, its decline has been steady.
Recent interactions with Souzan Ardalan finally showed me absolutely all of the reasons why.
When I made the appointment, with Connie, one month before the scheduled visit, as well as during the additional times they'd called to confirm it, I communicated my need for just the one, usual service, of just a basic cleaning with novocaine, and the total cash price, of $135, to which Connie had agreed. I also mentioned that I would be driving up from Orange County for the visit.
Day of, I left work, in the middle of my day, to drive over an hour and a half in jammed morning traffic to get there. When I arrived, I was 8 minutes late (which I'd called, en route, to let them know about).
It's so common for us as patients to be made to wait for our doctors and dentists, that a 15 min grace period is an industry wide generally accepted courtesy doctors and dentists provide, nationwide, for patients running late to their appointments.
Regardless of the fact that I've arrived early for the last 5 prior appointments with them, and that, on every single one of those appointments with them, THEY had made me wait 15 - 20 min, and once, even 40 minutes, they were ok with dying on their sword over 8 minutes.
They refused to see me, and they were shockingly rude about it. And then they had the unmitigated gall to assume I'd subject myself to a repeat of this treatment by rescheduling yet another appointment with them. They thought I could just leave work any old time, as if I had all the money in the world to waste yet another day and another tank of gas on a three hour drive.
We'd agreed upon the single service when I'd made the appointment, and the price, yet they waited till I showed up to say, NOW there wasn't enough time to see me. They started throwing up excuses by inventing additional services we hadn't agreed upon (& likely would have also surprised me with a higher bill at the end for them too)! They suddenly said that they now wanted X-rays, and gum measurements, and all these random, other, extra services, and that my subjecting myself to them was "mandatory" & because they were now suddenly dictating the performance of these extra services, which we had NOT agreed upon, that there suddenly wasn't enough time to honor my appointment, because another patient was supposed to arrive in 45 minutes.
Not only was this other patient not even there, the whole office was completely empty! At 1 o'clock in the middle of the business day! I was there. There was 45 minutes. All I wanted was a cleaning. I was paying full price. In cash. But no.
None of this made any sense until Souzan Ardalan suddenly came walking out... and then, I totally understood why loosing a patient, loyal to their business for over 21 years could be justified with such random, unprofessional, irrational behavior on their part.
Souzan Ardalan stumbled out, with raccoon eyes mascara, smudged down her face, which rimmed red, bloodshot eyes, was sporting a halo of messy, unwashed hair and was dressed in unkempt, rumpled attire. She was just slovenly and grossly disheveled. Far more disconcerting, however, was her manic, irrational, pugnaciously snappish behavior. What was NOT surprising, was that she was exhibiting all this, in an office, entirely devoid of patients, just a few hours in to the business day. It all made this business's struggle towards impending doom even more substantially apparent.
Suddenly I remembered the two back molars that had gotten infected and had ached terribly for months after she had bonded them. And then, when I began writing this, I'd discovered her near endless stream of (at least 8, multi-year!) civil, criminal and fraud cases, she's been involved in. Suddenly, everything clicked into place.
Her mistreatment of her patients will ultimately be the terminating cause of her practice's unfortunately imminent downfall. Sadly, in her current state, I doubt she's able to recognize how fiercely she's contributing to her own professional demise.
"Doctor" Souzan Ardalan is sinking her own ship. read more
