Ellingsen Endodontics

I have dental anxiety and a very small mouth. I got Dr Denison, she was awesome. she had small hands so I didn't have to stretch my mouth too far. I left feeling much better after my root canal. They didn't except my insurance but I got in so quickly it didn't matter to me for the relief. Very professional staff and told me the price before they even started.

My dentist made every attempt to do a root canal on a rear molar but thought there should be a 4th root that he could not find. He finally decided to give up and send me to Ellingsen Endodontics. My initial quote from my dentist was in the neighborhood of $500.00 for my out of pocket expense, which he did not charge me for, even though he spent a considerable amount of time working on my tooth. (very excellent customer service.) When the appointment was set up I asked my dentist's receptionist if the place took my insurance. She said, she believed it was accepted and would not be a problem. When I signed in for my appointment at Ellingsen Endodontics, I asked the receptionist point blank if they took my insurance? She said they bill it all the time and don't have any problems with it, which reassured me that they were in network. At no point did she say, "We bill your insurance as a courtesy but do not contract with any insurances at this time so you will be paying for services based on your out of network benefits." That would have been the proper answer to my question. That is not what I received however. Paper work was signed, I felt comfortable that all would go smoothly, and I allowed the procedure to take place. Had I known it was out of network, I would have never consented to the procedure. I would have waited to see if the attempt my dentist made was more successful than he may have thought. I was a tad confused when they wanted $750.00 down instead of the $500.00 that my dentist had quoted, but thought maybe there were additional costs involved since this was a specialist and/or, once my insurance processed I might even have a refund coming to me. Imagine my shock when a couple of months later I received another bill for $377.00!! I checked my EOB and it indicated they covered @ 50% of the allowed amount,but no discounted rate was posted. I thought there had to be a mistake, so I called my insurance and that's when I found out that Ellingsen was out of network. I thought when I called Dr Ellingsen's office they would do right by me. Instead, the person that answered my call argued with me that they always tell their patients up front. Considering I work in the medical billing profession I can assure you, they never told me that. (Very BAD customer service.) To make matters even worse, my tooth has never felt fixed and when I went back to talk to the provider directly and have her recheck my tooth and question the bill she gave me a song and dance about the tissue around the tooth needing to heal and to just not use it for another week. By this time it had been over 3 months since she had performed the root canal, and she tried to tell me that the fact that they are out of network was in the paperwork I signed. It was not, I checked. At this point it's been over 9 months and my tooth still bothers me. I ended up applying for Care Credit to pay the bill, she did not offer to discount the bill at all to make up for the error that I feel they made. I felt completely lied to and deceived and will never visit Dr Ellingsen's office again or recommend her.