Daniel E. Thompson & Dennis C. Schnecker, P.C.

Review: The company did not notify me properly about a hidden 39.40 charge. They sent mail to an old address after I had notified them of my current one. They consistently use email and text to notify me but refused to use these methods to let me know that I owed money. I did not find out until they had sent my case to collections. I really liked this dentist but felt motivated to report their irresponsible ways to attempt collection. I had left my last visit with them and paid in full on that date. I had no idea they were charging me after the fact nor had I gotten any mail.

A phone call would have really been great.Desired Settlement: This company contacted me 6 times on email and about 4 times on text and failed to mention any monies owed. They were at the same time sending letters to my old address. Bad business and its a shame because the dentists are great.

I would like the collections reversed and them to admit fault in this case.

Business

Response:

To whom it may concern:

This letter is in response to your letter of complaint, in which a patient questions our collection

processes and our charges. I am attaching a blank copy of our patient registration form that clearly

states our collection policy. This form was signed and dated by this patient.

There are no hidden charges, as the patient states. On the day of service,the patient paid his estimated

portion. We always state that this is an estimate and if there is a difference after the insurance pays

their portion, we will send a bill for the balance. That is also clearly stated in the attached patient

registration form. We did send the patient four statements, followed by a past due letter, a collection

letter, and a final letter stating that the account will go to a credit bureau if not paid within 15 days. I

believe that we went above the necessary in order to notify the patient of his financial responsibility.

None of the statements or letters was returned as undeliverable, so we had no reason to believe that

the patient did not receive them.

It is not our policy to make collection telephone calls, unless correspondence had been returned as

"undeliverable," which they were not. We have had no notification of any change of address. The

emails and texts that the patient mentions receiving are for appointment confirmation and are

completed by an independent contracting company and is not connected to our practice management.

We are certainly sorry for any miscommunication, and it is never our desire to send patients to the

credit bureau. Unfortunately, infrequently this does happen. When the patient called our office to

voice his displeasure, I stated the above and stated that ¡f he paid the account we would indeed remove

his account from the credit bureau and if done in a timely manner, would not affect his credit rating. He

did not pay.

Sincereiy,

[redacted],

Office Manager,

Dr's Thompson, Schnecker and Tomoda

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response offer made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

That is a total lie, I was never told that I would be removed from a bad report and that it would not hurt my credit if I paid it. I cannot believe this person is a professional. I will also report her practices to the doctors there.

I don't mind paying either way. I just cannot go without reporting BAD business.

Regards,

Review: Late last year I had 4 lower teeth removed and a replacement bridge put in. Following is some of the email I sent Dr. Schnecker on January 9, 2015: "At first, even though I hate coming to the dentist and especially needles, I was doing okay. When you pulled the teeth, I tolerated the needles and thought the needles were over. But when I returned to continue the procedure, I was told that I did have to have more needles and though I offered to take my valium right then (and I would be ready for the needles in 20 minutes) you decided that I would have to come back another time so I wasted that visit. You send me 5 or 6 emails and texts before each visit (2 would be more than enough) so why couldn't you send me a non-automated one before I came telling me that I was going to have needles and I would have been prepared (or mentioned it at the last visit). What happened next was unfortunate but not your fault.

I returned and to numb my mouth you had to give me 5 needles and that was simply horrible.

My next visit was also a disaster as the new bridge didn't fit right (I am not sure if it was your fault, the lab's fault or simply the way these things go) and I had to return again, this time putting my vacation off so I could come on the 8th. I would have left on Tuesday to beat the cold (and I tried to get an earlier appointment but I was told you wouldn't be in until 12:10 on the 8th). I came in 15 minutes early anyway and to my surprise you were inside working on a patient (your office manager said it was an emergency but when I asked her if she was sure of that she said no). So when 12:10 came I expected your immediate attention and it didn't come. If fact when I went to talk to the receptionist when I saw your chair empty, she said you had two rooms and that you were working on another patient in the second room. I was furious and I knew that I was going to hit traffic near [redacted] (which I wouldn't have if you had taken me at 12:10). Adding to my frustration was that the receptionist told me you would be with me in 20 minutes but it was 45 minutes before you brought me in. Earlier the receptionist (after telling me there was nothing she could do) told me to talk to the office manager (who had to approve the delay of my final payment until the insurance claims were finished) but she also said that she couldn't do anything (why would the receptionist have me talk with her if such were the case?) and she told me to be patient. I had been very patient so her saying that was very rude in my view. I did ask her about a reduction in my bill for how fouled up things had gotten (and she seemed to be involved with the financial part of things, as I mentioned) but she said all the money stuff was handled by you. As you can see, I have paid you 3000 dollars already and I am willing to pay the rest in full as soon as you finish the insurance claims. I do think that you should reduce my bill by some reasonable figure and that your staff should not tell people there is nothing they can do when a patient is being treated unfairly. Even if there is nothing they can do, they can be more sympathetic and they could have admitted that I was getting screwed and not act like I was in any way at fault and that I should simply be patient."

Over a month later I called and asked one of his office people, [redacted] whether Dr. Schnecker had received my email and if he was going to respond to it. She was nasty and said I was "ranting."Desired Settlement: I would like an apology from Dr. Schnecker for waiting 5 months to respond to my email and I would like an apology from [redacted] for saying that my perfectly fair inquiry about whether Dr. Schnecker got my email and when he was going to respond was ranting.

Business

Response:

Below is a copy of my response to the letter from the complainant. I have removed his name.As background, his original email came while my wife and I were on vacation. I was later told of its existence but didn't see an actual copy until May. It is unfortunate that the original email was lost for a time in the shuffle. My personal apologies for being behind schedule on the day of his appointment were obviously not adequate to satisfy him.Unfortunately, not only was the patient furious on the day of his appointment because I was running behind, he voiced his fury to our receptionist to the point that our office manager felt the need to come to her rescue and try to move the discussion to a more private location. While the front desk cannot know all the details of why we are running behind schedule in the operatories, the staff tried to calm the patient by stating that we would see him as soon as we finished caring for the patient who was already being treated. Their reasoning did not calm him and he resorted to abusive and bullying language as well as believing they were lying to him. It was when he called later and the receptionist again felt demeaned by the patient's words that a statement about "ranting" was made. It was my hope that he would reflect on his actions and apologize to my staff for his attitude and words and that our receptionist apologize for a less than ideal response. I obviously failed to bring this about. In this letter it was my hope that we could be reconciled over the issue of his having to wait 45 minutes the day of his appointment. I did not address the portion about "ranting" in this communication with the hope that once the initial complaint was settled we might then come to an understanding about my receptionist's statement regarding what she perceived as the patient "ranting" to her. If you would like further clarification, I would be happy to do so. Sincerely, Dr. Dennis SchneckerJune 9,2015Dear Dr ___________,Finally I am responding to your letter. I have no good excuse for the delay, but I can be honest. I hate writing. I am a two finger typist and not terribly computer savvy so it is a formidable task. I find that truly understanding one another in face to face communication is often difficult, as our situation is an example, so trying to reach agreed upon understanding via email feels almost impossible to me. While I am making confessions I must also admit that I am a procrastinator. I tend to put off things that are unpleasant or that I feel incapable of doing well (i.e., writing an English professor). My first reaction to your letter was that I couldn’t imagine what more could be said. We had obviously failed to satisfy you when we were face to face so what more could I say? Part of my reaction was to your obvious anger with us. I thought, “How could he so little appreciate how hard we have worked to meet his needs and requirements?” As I have thought about it maybe this is the problem. You really don’t have the information needed to understand the situation from an objective point of view. I will try to fill in the blanks in the hope that it may help.I guess to begin I need to give a bit of philosophical background. I truly believe that all people are equal in value. We were all created in the image of God and as a result are of infinite value. I also see this world as very broken and that includes all the people in it. We all tend to be self-centered and fail to truly treat others as we would like to be treated. Frustration seems to be the curse on this world. Things break and wear out. People get sick and suffer from aging. Relationships are strained and broken because we fail to understand and love one another. No matter how hard we plan and work often we fail and are disappointed in ourselves and others. This is frustration.The thing that motivates me as I attempt to serve people is that in spite of the frustration people truly are of infinite value and therefore the battle is worth it. We need to show grace to one another and ourselves and then work to do the best we can as a way of honoring people.Let me be more specific as this affects how we experience that frustration together. I will review your experience in having your lower bridge done.First, please understand that your anxiety over needles and dental treatment is also very stressful for us. We very much want to treat you as comfortably as possible. You probably don’t realize that we add extra time to your appointments because we know it will be needed. We have never charged you extra for that time. We use nitrous oxide to help with your anxiety but you again have probably never been charged for it. You may however have been charged for the mask and encouraged to bring it to appointments so it can be reused.Your appointment in September for the temporary bridge preparation and extractions fortunately went well and, by the way, we did not charge you for the temporary bridge. Your return appointment to finalize the preparation of your teeth for the permanent bridge was a disappointment because you assumed that anesthesia would not be needed. Most people assume anesthetic will be required for work on teeth. I usually tell patients when I think they won’t need anesthesia rather than when they will. For someone like you who dreads needles it almost seems like cruel and unusual punishment to remind you each time that it is coming. To me this is an example of the frustration of communication. The reason we rescheduled you that day was that to have taken the twenty to thirty minutes for you to self medicate would have guaranteed that every patient scheduled after you would have had to wait, something that you don’t like to have happen to you. For us it meant seventy wasted minutes. To put this in perspective approximately 70% of every dollar we collect goes to pay office expenses. Those expenses continued during those wasted minutes. Financially we would have been much better off to have seen you as you requested but it would have been unfair to later patients. It is bad enough when we have to make patients wait unavoidably because of circumstances we can’t control. The appointment when we needed so much anesthesia was terrible for all of us and we all wish it had been easier. Life is frustrating. I was sorry for all of us but especially for you. We did get it done but experienced one additional frustration that didn’t show itself until our attempt to seat the bridge. Though we practiced having you close in a normal position, when we took the final impression we failed to capture that correct bite position and I failed to realize it. Is there any value in assigning blame? Again, frustration, but returning the bridge to the lab allowed us to reach our desired goal. The final appointment to seat the bridge was done as quickly as the lab could get it back. There was no real time available on our schedule so the appointment was made at the end of my morning schedule in what we call emergency time with the knowledge that we would use our lunchtime if all else failed. Unfortunately over the course of the morning we fell behind and you had to wait. You felt that my staff was lying to you when they could not give you a definite answer to how long you would wait. I honestly feel they were doing the best they could under the circumstances as they listened to your frustration. There is that word again — frustration. We all face it and to some extent we must share it. My desire and hope is that I face it with as much grace as possible.Your letter prompted me to review the actual time required to complete your case. Normally we would need four and one half hours total to complete such a case. We spent seven and one half hours on you. Of the extra time an hour and fifty minutes was directly related to your anxiety. The remaining extra seventy minutes was from failure to capture the correct bite. Remembering that 70% of every dollar we collect goes to pay overhead there was no profit for me or the office in your case. Technically it was a loss. You had no way of knowing this and frankly neither did I until I ran the numbers. You have said nothing about the final result. I think the bridge turned out quite well. You were worth it and the frustration was also worth it to get a good, long term result. I am sorry you were and are so angry with us. I really don’t know what we realistically could have done better. I would ask that you fairly and honestly consider your contribution to the difficulties we experienced. I don’t want to sound harsh or uncaring, however, I think it is unfair of you to place all the responsibility for the consequences of your anxiety upon us. If you feel the need for further clarification, please let me know. I hope this has helped.Yours respectfully,Dennis Schnecker, DMD

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response offer made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

I want to respond to Dr. Schnecker as best I can. First, I find it wonderfully ironic that he misplaced (elves?) my email while he was on vacation. Part of my vacation was ruined by his mistakes but it was okay for him to not respond to my email for 5 months (and he only responded then because I contacted Revdex.com) while part of the time he was on vacation. What a double standard. And he says my email was “lost in the shuffle.” How do you lose an email “in the shuffle”? It’s an electronic document that was addressed to him. What a lame excuse. And look how slyly he tries to avoid the apology for the 5 month delay by his non sequitur of shifting his “personal apology” back to the delay in treatment not the delay in responding to my email, which was one of only two things I asked him to apologize for. Let me also make it clear that the other thing I wanted Dr. Schnecker to apologize was for [redacted] accusing me of ranting when I was simply asking if Dr. Schnecker had gotten my email and whether he was going to respond to it. What [redacted] maintains is simply untrue and I think she is just trying to cover her rudeness. I also disagree with his presentation of what happened in his office. My version is accurate even though I am not asking him to apologize for the misleading rudeness of his staff. I do understand that there is an element of subjectivity here so that is why I am willing to let that go. What is more concerning to me is Dr. Schnecker’s Christian fanaticism. I want to quote a very long passage from his second email to me, an email he conveniently did not send to you: “I may be wrong but I think ours is a conflict in worldviews. We seem to operate from very different views of how life is to work and you find my view to be offensive. I have indicated that I have a belief in God, but in fact my basic identity is as a follower of Jesus. Some would use the term “Christian" but I am a bit hesitant to use that word because it means different things to many people. For simplicity sake though I will use the word. I am not a dentist who happens to be a Christian. Rather, I am a Christian who happens to be a dentist. I am a Christian dentist. I am also a Christian husband, Christian father and to many a Christian friend. With all my heart I believe that God has revealed himself to mankind through what he has created and through his special revelation the Bible. I believe there are absolute truths that he has established. He made us and loves us and, like any good parent, has defined for our own good how we should live. He made us to reflect and appreciate who he is and his love for us. The appropriate and logical response to him should be simple obedience and love. But we would rather be our own god and live by our own rules. Our failure to follow him perfectly is what the Bible defines as sin. This rebellion and even hatred of him and his rule puts us under his perfect and just judgement. For God to fail to punish our rebellion would be to violate his own perfection.But God loves us anyway and made a way that we can be reconciled to him. He sent his Son, Jesus, as a perfect revelation of his love and character. It was the will of God that Jesus suffer a cruel death on a cross taking the full wrath of God’s judgement against the rebellion and sin of all men. God’s justice was satisfied in the suffering and death of Jesus as our substitute. The proof of God’s acceptance of that sacrifice is that Jesus was raised from the dead. This may sound preposterous to many worldviews but the very possibility that it may be true makes it worth thorough investigation. For me the Christian worldview explains the major questions of life. Some of these questions are: Why does this universe exist and with the order that it displays? Does truth exist as a reality? Why is there so much pain and suffering and conflict in this world? Why is it that people can experience beauty? Why do we long for purpose in life? Is there true justice? Is there anything after death? Is there hope that has any reality? Is there an appropriate way to live? Is there a holy God and if so how do I avoid his judgement?For the Christian the answer to that last question is both simple and profound. A Christian is one who admits and agrees with God that he is rebellious and broken and deserves just punishment. A Christian is one whose desire is to know, obey and love God but who knows that there is nothing he can do to make himself acceptable to God. A Christian is one who accepts that his only true hope is to trust in the death and resurrection of Jesus as one who took his just punishment as his substitute. Jesus died to honor his Father and to make a way that God could and would accept us as his children. For me this is a wondrous truth and the basis for who I am and hope to be. I may grieve for you that you don’t agree with a christian worldview and I do feel rather vulnerable in sharing my heart with you but in no way do I value you less for your belief system, but I would hope that you might see that I value you more than you realized.Having said all the above, the result is that when you seem to require that I exclude “religion" from dentistry I find myself unable to be me. I may wish we shared worldviews and can understand that you disagree, but I am at a loss as to how to respond to your seeming hostility.” This is an utterly inappropriate response to a patient who is disagreeing about professional dental services. It is condescending and insulting and I wonder if his partners know he sent this to me. Does Dr. Schnecker think he is a preacher or a priest? Does he want to start performing confirmations or exorcisms in his office? This is nutty. I would agree that we have differing worldviews but that is so irrelevant to dental care that only a true fanatic would bring the two together. I think Dr. Schnecker owes me a profound apology for his misguided words. Let me also address his comments about my fear of needles. First I have been a patient of Dr. Schnecker’s for close to 30 years and this is the first time he has complained about my fear of needles. If I was such a problem, why didn’t he address the issue years ago, instead of accepting thousands of dollars from me and many thousands from my insurance. In addition, eight years ago I had colon cancer and had a colon resection and 5 months of chemotherapy, 5 horrible months of nausea and vomiting and having a needle stuck in my arm for 3 or 4 hours per week (Dr. Schnecker knew of this because he had to treat me differently during chemo). His unexpected comments (again, he never brought this up in close to 30 years) made me relive those awful 5 months. I hope he and his God are happy for the pain they have brought me. Sincerely,Dr. [redacted]Professor of English[redacted] University