My wife and I had our teeth cleaned at the Gentle Dental location in Fremont, CA. The front office is a joke. They are pretty much clueless even in basic concepts like setting up appointments. But let's set that aside.
Gentle Dental is a chain and uses the same unscrupulous marketing/up-sell practices that many other large corporations use. When you go in for a regular cleaning they harass you and try to get you to sign up for other more expensive treatments like deep cleaning. We finally succumbed and signed up for the deep cleaning (yes, we were fools!). They also quietly slip in extras like "desentizing cream" etc., during the treatment without disclosing it first and then slap a charge on you for it, because according to them, "it's really required but the insurance company does not cover it".
Now for the worst part. After our treatments, we paid our part and were told that the insurance had picked up the rest. After a couple of months, they came back and started asking for more money saying the insurance did not cover all the costs. When asked about the details, the person at the corporate accounting office was extremely confused (standard Gentle Dental incompetence). I have no way of disproving the legitimacy of these charges, but I am still suspicious of these new charges and wonder if it is some sort of "profit-boosting" scheme devised at corporate headquarters to boost revenue during these lean times.
After much ado, I finally just got fed and just paid the bill. I also swore that I will never ever again go to Gentle Dental or similar "chain" outfit. I am going to stick to my local small-business dentist and I urge you to do the same. What Gentle Dental did to me is another example of how the greedy corporatization of our health-care has hurt the average person on the street.
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