DentistGoneBad,com

Hi all,
Hope everyone had a great weekend.

I apparently have upset the masses from my Friday blog.

I think a Townie must have read it and then it spread like wild fire.

I was then called all the names in the book.

For the first time in the history of the blog I had to censor comments.

I don't like censoring but when the f-word is being thrown around...this won't be tolerated (you know I am the only one that can cuss on this blog).

As I said in my comment to the comment. I am just telling my story. I loved the guys lecture. I just had a weird experience with him after. That is it.

I did however go back and read the post. I thought everything was just telling the story. But at the end I alluded to that he might not care about his patients. For this I am sorry.

I have no excuse...I must have been tired and ready to go from the office or something. I don't know why I wrote this. I didn't mean to attack his character. I truly thought he was a high character guy. (as I alluded to in Wednesday's blog)

Okay,

I wanted to tell you this story that happened to me last week.

I have an assistant that thinks the world of me (much different than the Townies right now). We have been working together for 13 years now. I have treat her whole family. She has two brothers that fly to see me from Maryland and a sister that drives up from a town 3 hours south of here.

One of them has a friend that went to a dentist.

The friend was a 59 year old woman that never liked her teeth. Her kids were finished with college and this freed up some time and money to go to the dentist.

I think the brother (who I am presently doing work on) was visiting the sister and they all started talking about teeth.

It seems that the woman went to a local dentist and had some questions about her treatment plan.
My assistants sister says you ought to call my dentist. He would be glad to talk to you.

So instead of calling me, she just faxed her treatment plan to me and asked me what I thought.

First of all the $69,000 treatment plan about knocked me out of my chair.

Yes, I said SIXTY-NINE THOUSAND.

Seems this dentist was going to take all her teeth out put in 14 implants and do two perio-

prosthesis bridges on the upper and lower.

Now to some of you non-dental people taking out all of someone's teeth is something that is done and I have done it a number of time.

But this is usually the LAST resort.

So I called her.

I wanted to know what was going through her head. I wanted to know what kind of dental I.Q. she has.

I also wanted to make myself available to her to answer any questions or, and if she desires, take a look at her teeth.

So we started talking. She just wanted to know if I thought what he wanted to do was legitimate. I said "yes".

But I think I should have used a caveat. Like I think it is okay IF your teeth need to be taken out.

At the time she said that she just left the office because she was getting a deep cleaning. Hmmm?

Why would she be getting her teeth cleaned if she was getting them all pulled?

So she said that the money was not something that was an issue. She just wanted to know what I thought.

While we are talking I start at my computer and wonder what this guy was like so I put in a Google search for him.
I was looking for his website. I can kind of see what kind of dentist this guy is by his website. I can browse his before and after pictures...stuff like that.

But what I found was so much more.

The third item down was DENTISTGONEBADINthecitysheisfrom.COM.

Seems that he has pissed someone off enough that this patient made a website about how bad this dentist was.

The top of the website claims that this particular dentist is working on a suspended license.

Then it goes on to say what a quack this guy is.

I am talking to this woman and I said, "I think it might benefit you to Google Dr. So-and-so.

I am presently looking at a website that is not saying such good things about him." I continue, "I am not out to slander him but I think you should see this for yourself."

She said, "I am not very computer literate so I don't know how to do all this, plus you can't just take one person's opinion about someone."

"I totally agree with you." I continued, " I have not pleased 100% of my patients and I would hate to have someone have a personal vendetta against me. But I still think you should have your daughter or someone help you check it out."

This website was about an eight page website that started with this persons story.

Then it welcomes everyone to chime in.

Then the next page is a bunch more stories all tearing this guy a new one.

There is a thread from a previous employee that states she wanted to stand in front of the office and tell people not to come in.

Then another from an attorney stating that he had SIX cases presently against this dentist.

If anyone wanted to talk to him they should follow up with him.

So I continued our conversation and moved in a different direction. I answered her questions. Turns out that she found this guy because he has TV and radio commercials and takes out full page ads in the newspaper. I was getting a nice picture of the whole thing.
What could I say? Nothing.
Now for the record I don't have a problem with ads so I was not talking negatively about that.
So we hung up. I told her to call me if she needed anything else.
And that was it.

So a couple of days go by and my assistant got a call from her sister.
Turns out the woman went back to the dentist and he wasn't there. He was in Orlando renewing his license. Hmmm?
I renew my license all the time and I never have to travel to do it.
But she talked to the treatment coordinator and she apparently dropped the price $10,000. Isn't that awesome she went in and they dropped the price 10 G's.
(As an aside, this is where I have a problem. When we start looking like car salesman [even sometime we feel like it] is when the profession is being hurt.)

So as it turns out it looks like this woman is going to use this dentist. I don't know a thing about either of them but...if it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, quacks like a duck....it probably is a duck.
My real issue is Where are all those patients at my practice? They have unlimited funds. They don't really trust me. They go to another dentist for advice. AND THEY STILL GET THE WORK DONE. Amazing.
My patients wouldn't even finish the exam before leaving.

Have a great Wednesday,
Talk to you on Friday,
john