PI Dental

Review: On 11/21/13 my husband and myself patronized Pi Dental Center for a routine teeth exam and cleaning. I have been a patient of Pi for over 15 years, but it was my husband's first visit. I have always had a wonderful experience with Pi - so much so that I continued to go there for over 15 years despite the fact that their office is not a participating provider with my dental insurance. In fact, Pi does not participate with ANY dental insurance provider. Their policy is for the patient to pay up front for the services rendered but the office would submit the claim to the dental insurance on the patients behalf. The patient would then need to wait to get reimbursed from the dental insurance company directly. I booked our appointments a few months in advance to ensure we could be seen at the same time. My husband was taken back first and was only expecting to have done 3 things that are routine for any new patient appointment: xrays, a dental cleaning and a dental exam. When the staff at Pi began talking to him about other procedures he told them no and any services above xrays/cleaning/exam must be authorized by me (I am the dental policy holder AND I used to run a dental office myself so I was very familiar with dental insurance and the coverage we had). This never happened and the staff rendered many unnecessary and unauthorized procedures on him to the tune of $405 - more than 1/2 was not covered by insurance. I immediately called Pi. After MANY attempts, I finally spoke with the GM asking for $179 of the $405 to be refunded given the negligence on Pi's part for rendering services without authorization. The GM then informed me of Pi's new patient policy: a list of services were required or else Pi would not accept you as a new patient. This was news to me as I never heard of any new patient policy before but she said her staff was supposed to inform me of the policy at the time of booking the appt. as well as send it out via mail - both of which never happened.Desired Settlement: Pi Dental has been extremely negligent. They rendered services on my husband without gaining my approval per his request. Additionally they did not inform me or my husband of their policy for accepting new patients. For all of these reasons, I am looking to seek back $179 of the $405 paid out of pocket to Pi Dental for my husband's services.

Business

Response:

January 30, 2014

Dear [redacted],

We are in receipt of your letter dated January 27, 2014 regarding patient's request for reimbursement in the amount of $179.00 and her complaint against us. Patient's wife makes a strong case on paper and it would be easy for us to refund the $179.00 so that the matter can be settled however in all fairness to our office and dedicated staff we would like to present our position in the matter.

Our front desk is trained to explain what is involved in a new patient visit and what the fees are. Since we are a prosthodontic dental speciaity practice, the adult new patient experience is much more comprehensive than that of a regular dental office. During the new patient visit, the patient is given a detailed treatment plan outlining all of their needs. We are very careful not to begin work that patients don't approve.

If the patient was expecting to have only three things done someone wasn't listening to the details explained over the phone when scheduling the appointment, if patient said no to the additional procedures on the day of the appointment, our professional staff would not have continued on.

I personally was at the desk when the couple checked out and neither of them seemed distressed in the least about what had occurred during the visit that day and never complained about the charges for the days procedures.

It was only after patient received the insurance benefit that we heard back. They must have thought that we would be able to make some sort of adjustment because the insurance company hadn't fully reimbursed them. We explained that we don't do that and that seemed to start the complaint.

A letter was written to the patient on January 20, 2014. We are sorry that our explanation was not acceptable.

Sincerely,