Dentists. The New Chiropractors.

Thea made that up. Not me. But I believe it.

Here’s the new scam in dentists: not cleaning your teeth.

This happened to me a few years ago at a chain dentist in Austin. I went in for a regular teeth-cleaning appointment and had the x-rays, talked to the dentist’s assistant (because you never really see the dentist unless you’re there for major stuff), and then they said I should schedule an appointment to have my teeth cleaned. “Oh, I did,” I told them. “It’s today. I came in today to have my teeth cleaned.”

The dental assistant said, “Oh, this is just an appointment to examine your mouth and create a “treatment plan.” You need a separate appointment to clean your teeth.”

Huh?

Since we moved to Atlanta we’ve had three dentists.

The first was okay but they stopped taking our insurance. So we had to start all over with a new dentist. For Frank this is usually no big deal. He never gets a bad report at the dentist. Why does that piss me off? Because he does minimal home dental care. He brushes in the morning. He brushes at night. If the mood strikes him or he’s got something stuck in his teeth, he’ll floss.

I, on the other hand, brush after every meal, floss every night and use one of those scraper things on my teeth like the best dental assistants use. Oh, and I go to the dentist four times a year. Yet every time I go to a new dental office, they bombard me with accusations about not flossing and not doing it correctly. So when I went to our new Atlanta dentist I wasn’t surprised to hear they wanted me to have a gum cleaning. I said I would schedule that later but could they first just clean my teeth?

No.

They wouldn’t clean my teeth! They said I HAD to do the gum cleaning that day and then I would have to come back to have my teeth cleaned. I cried. I actually cried. After jaw surgery,
gum surgery, and veneers, I was so tired of dental work. I had vowed to stop letting them talk me into all these procedures. But it’s like they were holding the teeth cleaning over my head and I didn’t have a choice. She showed me my treatment plan which was going to cost me all this money. That’s actually when I cried. But I figured they were right. I always do have gum issues. Plus, I was pregnant at the time and she said it would hurt the baby if I didn’t get the gum cleaning. How could I argue when she played the baby card?

Then Frank had his first appointment with the new dentist. But instead of coming back with his usual, “I have no cavities. They said my teeth were perfect. My gums are perfect. I’m the picture of oral health,” he said, “They want me to get this gum cleaning!” He then showed me his treatment plan which looked exactly like mine. In fact, I pulled mine out of the Simcik files and compared.

That’s when I knew it was all a scam. I called the insurance company and they said it’s so common that they’re tracking how many customers call in to complain about it.

So what did we do? We switched dentists. Again.

Instead of going to a chain, we went to a one-man operation. Frank went in and had his usual teeth cleaning and got a glowing report.

I went in and got the usual ridicule:

“No way. No way you floss every day. Are you doing it right? Like this?” (they then show me the “wrapping” technique and I so badly want to tell them that I do it better than they do it).

“And you say your last cleaning was in January? You mean January of this year?”

“Why don’t you try rinsing after every meal?”

This all went on for awhile. But at least they cleaned my teeth. It’s good to be back to normal.