I'll try to be as comprehensive as possible, my head is spinning a little bit and I feel like a big dumb idiot because I know I'm vulnerable to being taken advantage of because I'm so anxious and a pushover.
Anyway, A few days ago I had a filling fall out of my mouth, which has never happened before. My last dentist's visit was back before I found employment and when I was on state medicaid about a year and a half ago. Now I have had my own dental insurance so I booked an appointment with a closer dentist.
Anyway, they took X-Rays and there was a consultation with the dentist and hygienist. The dentist immediately told me that I had a baby tooth that shouldn't be there, which I told him yeah that I've known about that and my older dentist's all said that it was OK. New Dentist says it has to come out, and the tooth that has the fallen out filling also needs to be extracted and replaced with an implant. They also told me I had a small cavity that needed a filling too. Then the hygienist came in and basically told me I had early stage warnings for gingivitis and that I need to floss more, scheduled a cleaning, sent me to the office manager. Office Manager gives me a huge itemized list and showed me a couple papers totaling things for like, 1500-2000 dollars. I think it might have said more actually, like 3000-4000 but that might have been before insurance, I was a little confused and didn't feel like they were explaining things to their best ability. There were also charges in there like 130 dollars for an electric toothbrush which they "removed for me as a courtesy as you already said you have a toothbrush". I basically said that I couldn't pay that out of pocket right now but that in the long term if I need to do it, I need to do it but I'd need to wait for my tax return and my Christmas bonus to come in, I asked if I could schedule it out a few months in advance because I could pay it down the road, I just need time. They said they can't schedule anything without an immediate upfront payment.
They were pretty quick to put it on the back-burner and wanted to schedule me in for a cavity filling and tooth cleaning, which I assumed would end up happening with the fixing the broken filling, but I was surprised at how they were encouraging me to put it off and worry about the implant and extraction later. Then they gave me the bill for the cavity filling and tooth cleaning, which came out to 977 dollars. It makes sense to me that a full tooth implant is going to cost a lot of money even with insurance, but I've never heard of a filling and cleaning costing upwards to a thousand dollars.
Anyway, I felt really uncomfortable and ended up agreeing to pay 60% of the bill up front and they charged me for 600 dollars, they want the other 400 dollars when I come in next week for the cleaning. I asked for the itemized billing and it looks like the overwhelming majority of the charge is multiple charges for "Arestin", which I looked up and appears to be an antibiotic. The fine print says I can request a refund at any time for services that haven't yet been rendered, so I think I can still call and get my money back. Do you all think I need to go in for a second opinion?
Anyway, A few days ago I had a filling fall out of my mouth, which has never happened before. My last dentist's visit was back before I found employment and when I was on state medicaid about a year and a half ago. Now I have had my own dental insurance so I booked an appointment with a closer dentist.
Anyway, they took X-Rays and there was a consultation with the dentist and hygienist. The dentist immediately told me that I had a baby tooth that shouldn't be there, which I told him yeah that I've known about that and my older dentist's all said that it was OK. New Dentist says it has to come out, and the tooth that has the fallen out filling also needs to be extracted and replaced with an implant. They also told me I had a small cavity that needed a filling too. Then the hygienist came in and basically told me I had early stage warnings for gingivitis and that I need to floss more, scheduled a cleaning, sent me to the office manager. Office Manager gives me a huge itemized list and showed me a couple papers totaling things for like, 1500-2000 dollars. I think it might have said more actually, like 3000-4000 but that might have been before insurance, I was a little confused and didn't feel like they were explaining things to their best ability. There were also charges in there like 130 dollars for an electric toothbrush which they "removed for me as a courtesy as you already said you have a toothbrush". I basically said that I couldn't pay that out of pocket right now but that in the long term if I need to do it, I need to do it but I'd need to wait for my tax return and my Christmas bonus to come in, I asked if I could schedule it out a few months in advance because I could pay it down the road, I just need time. They said they can't schedule anything without an immediate upfront payment.
They were pretty quick to put it on the back-burner and wanted to schedule me in for a cavity filling and tooth cleaning, which I assumed would end up happening with the fixing the broken filling, but I was surprised at how they were encouraging me to put it off and worry about the implant and extraction later. Then they gave me the bill for the cavity filling and tooth cleaning, which came out to 977 dollars. It makes sense to me that a full tooth implant is going to cost a lot of money even with insurance, but I've never heard of a filling and cleaning costing upwards to a thousand dollars.
Anyway, I felt really uncomfortable and ended up agreeing to pay 60% of the bill up front and they charged me for 600 dollars, they want the other 400 dollars when I come in next week for the cleaning. I asked for the itemized billing and it looks like the overwhelming majority of the charge is multiple charges for "Arestin", which I looked up and appears to be an antibiotic. The fine print says I can request a refund at any time for services that haven't yet been rendered, so I think I can still call and get my money back. Do you all think I need to go in for a second opinion?
