Not reviewing dentistry, but instead attitude of the dentist and the staff at this office. After…read moremaking an appt. for my son over a month ago, for a Friday at 4 pm, I was called multiple times the day of the appt. verifying 4 pm time and asking for paperwork to be filled out ahead of time--- which it was. We had to schedule on Friday at the latest time offered, since my son would be taking off work from his lab and driving up after working a half day.
I assured the office staff my son would be coming at 4 pm, and that actually I was going to bring him in since I had his car this week while he was in Louisville. I told them I would be picking him up, then turning right around and would be bringing him straight to his 4 pm appt. During the third call this morning at 8:30 am, the staff person asked if we would be able to be there at 3:30 pm today, to which I said no since we were going to be driving up from Louisville, I knew my son had experiments running until exactly 1:30 pm today in his lab, and we would not have enough time to get there at 3:30. She said that was fine.
Fast forward to 4:01 pm, we are 4 minutes away (by Waze) and my cell rings, the desk person at Avalon asks where we are. I say we are 4 mins away, my son was just looking up the number to call to let you know we are almost there, there was a huge accident on the 465 but we will be there by 4:10-- probably earlier. We park where Waze sent us, we get out of the car, it is 4:04 pm. I call Avalon to say "I don't see your office"-- then immediately see it across the street-- I say, we are right there-- Waze directed us to park to the right, but I see your office is on the left! Then run to the car, drive across the street and see a woman standing on the porch of the office nervously gesturing us in saying "we are HERE!" We open the door of the building at 4:10 pm. I can feel the tension by this nurse, not necessarily directed at us, but just in general-- she appeared worried and stressed.
The nurse shepherds my son immediately in, almost in a rush and with zero welcome, like he is going in for immediate brain surgery and 'ever minute counts.' I say to the desk person, I am sorry we are a few minutes late, during the 6 HOUR ROUND TRIP to get him up for this appt. there was an accident. She says, that is ok. I then asked if everything was all right because it appeared everyone was rushing around and upset. She said "well it's a Friday so..." I didn't exactly know what that meant since they had made the appt., I certainly didn't make up the 4 pm on a Friday time period.
At this point a rude office manager?? comes down the stairs and says 'we will not be doing any cleaning today since you are late.'
I said, "I'm very sorry we were a few minutes late, he's only here for x rays and a cleaning and we were less than ten minutes late, which I had already told the woman at the desk we were going to be when I called!" She said "you were 15 minutes late and we can't do it."
I was astounded. I said I couldn't believe this, and I reiterated my apology for being late ( I HATE being late)- I assured her we had done everything in our power to be there on time and I said I felt that was extremely unreasonable, in my opinion. I also said I did understand if it was later than 15 minutes, which it wasn't but also that we had gotten confirmation from the person who called at 4:01 that it was ok we would be a couple minutes late due to the accident on 465.
At this point the doctor comes around the corner and says in this horribly rude and snarky tone, with his hand on his hip(!)-- "is there a problem?" I said, "I'm sorry we were a few minutes late we tried as hard as we could but there was a ton of traffic on 465." He said "your appt was at 3:30 so you are way more than 5 minutes late!" (In my mind: 3:30?? The appt. was for 4 pm!)
He then said "your son has not had an appt in 3 years so I have no idea what his teeth look like!"--- I then said "three years? It's been six months! this is a normal check up!" he then argued with me and said "well that's what his chart says!" (I later realized he was referring to my adult DAUGHTER'S chart, which does in fact say three years ago, because she now lives in NYC, and her new dentist is there. She has a cleaning scheduled at Avalon (as a new patient) for Nov. because she will be back for Thanksgiving and wanted to get her cleaning at that time. (Guess not, now!)
At this point this is what I have realized:
1. The office staff heard from him he wanted to be off early since it was a Friday, they tried to ask if they could change the appt today to 3:30, when I said we really couldn't, they did not articulate that to him. He had thought it was for 3:30-- no fault of ours!
2. It appears he is a bully to his staff, or they are fearful of him. The multiple calls, the woman looking worried on the porch waving us in, then the staff member not relaying to the doctor we could not move our appt to an earlier time.
3. Fridays are not a gr