Dental high jinks

I’ve really been through it the past few years when it comes to visiting dentists and oral surgeons. For some background, here’s a list of my previous posts:

Good-Gums tooth powder instead of toothpaste

The Good-gums article was also reblogged on the Good-Gums website (and I was so honored)!

Finding the silver lining after traumatic dental experience

However, my relationship with this particular dentist was short-lived as she told me my tongue was too big for my mouth, and that it would cost $6,000 to fix what all was wrong with my teeth (and my husband threw a fit when I told him how she’d spoken to me and how much she wanted to charge me).

She had rushed me through all of her diagnostic tests, and even told ME to calm down because I affected HER Energy! (If she was really a holistic dentist SHE would have control over her own Energy and would not have put that upon me. I was appalled the more I thought about that. I never went back. Nor would I expend any Energy to explain my choice not to return to her.

Dental advice for vibrant health and bright smiles

2021: Review of a CrAzY, Transformative, Aligning Year

I put those posts on my Being Wholly Vibrant site as most were product or service reviews. But I plan to wrap up that site soon and move the best posts here, to SheilaMurrey.net – as I pay WordPress for it and the other site is a free site with ads I have no control over. I’d started Being Wholly Vibrant as a test and now, it has over 130 posts on it. But I digress.

I really don’t want to tell medical professionals how to do their jobs, but I am having an issue with dentists.

Apparently, many doctors and dentists file insurance claims for their patients and when the funds come in they put them in their account. If you owe a balance they are right on it to send YOU a bill, but what happens when they owe YOU??? I’ll tell you, nothing happens! They can keep your money indefinitely!

I’ve written to the Florida State Attorney’s General office about an unscrupulous dental office in St. Pete Beach, Florida after I found out they were holding $1150. on account (of my money) for over a YEAR! Here’s what the AG’s office told me:

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody received your correspondence regarding Dental Arts in Saint Pete Beach. Attorney General Moody asked that I respond.

We appreciate that you view our office as a source of assistance and I am sorry for your difficulties. The Attorney General’s Office is concerned with all potentially deceptive and unfair trade practices. We use complaints to identify patterns of questionable business activities that may indicate the need for formal investigation or action by our office. In this respect, we have shared your information with the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division.

For help obtaining a refund or other resolution, you may file a complaint with the state’s mediation program, operated by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (DACS):

Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
Division of Consumer Services
Telephone: (850) 410-3800
Toll-free within FL: (800) 435-7352
Website: https://www.fdacs.gov/Divisions-Offices/Consumer-Services

You can also find helpful information about fair debt collection practices, including instructions on disputing debts, and tips on resolving consumer problems at:

https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/debt-collection-faqs
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/topics/resolving-consumer-problems

Finally, if you need legal guidance, please consult a private attorney. An attorney can provide the legal guidance which this office is not authorized to provide to private individuals or organizations. The Florida Bar offers a Lawyer Referral Service at (800) 342-8011 or https://www.floridabar.org/public/lrs/. If you need information about legal aid services, please visit https://www.floridabar.org/public/consumer/pamphlet022/.

Another resource for Florida residents aged 60 or older is the Florida Senior Legal Helpline, a free statewide telephone advice and referral service toll-free within Florida at (888) 895-7873 (see https://bals.org/senior-legal-helpline).

Thank you for contacting Attorney General Moody’s office.

Sincerely,

Rob Sparks
Office of Citizen Services
Florida Attorney General’s Office
The Capitol, PL-01
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-1050
Telephone: (850) 414-3990
Toll-free in Florida: (866) 966-7226
Website: http://www.myfloridalegal.com

PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS E-MAIL. THIS ADDRESS IS FOR PROCESSING ONLY.

To contact this office please visit the Attorney General’s website at http://www.myfloridalegal.com and complete the on-line contact form.

Florida Attorney General’s Office

I did call Morgan and Morgan’s office over this matter but the dollar amount wasn’t high enough for anyone there to care about it. I guess they really aren’t “for the people” as they claim to be in their commercials. I also turned in this dental office to the Florida Dental Association, though I never heard back from them.

I have reached out to the Florida Bar offers a Lawyer Referral Service to see what they suggest.

And since I’m now over 60, I’ve reached out to the Florida Senior Legal Helpline.

I so appreciate this information from the Attorney General Moody’s office and am continuing to learn how I can work to educate myself and others when it comes to this egregious financial wrong doing by these people.

It just sucks that I spent all that money on the crown and it has bothered me for more than a year (plus, though numb during that work, it hurt very badly and I told them but they continued working on it). Lesson learned. I should have got up and walked out. Plus, they still owe me $1,150 that’s a credit on my account! (And yes, I have exhausted all of the various means of trying to force them to pay me but nothing has worked yet!)

As for the silver lining, I’ve found a wonderful oral surgeon across the street from where we live, who took me in within a few days and only charged me $50 out of pocket to extract one of the molars which the dentist in St. Pete Beach, not only left IN my mouth when it should have been pulled during that visit, but he put a crown on top of it, and even through all of the numbing, it hurt extremely bad while they were doing that process. I should have gotten up out of the dentist chair and left their office, but I simply told them it hurt and they kept on working on it, saying it had to be done and “knew it hurt.”

I will no longer give anyone power over me like that again.