Dr. Waxman too very good care of my teeth while I was a patient…read moreduring the spring of 2012. It meant a lot to me to find a specialist who was so caring, efficient and had a great staff. As a young, single woman, the procedures that I had were expensive, even with insurance, and I was glad that his office offered to let me split payments and work out arrangements.
I even wrote this glowing review of your office on Yelp:
"...after visiting his office a total of five or six times for follow ups, I can say that it's one of the best. Dr. Waxman is very nice and very gentle and very willing to explain things and make sure that you are not in pain..."
I held his office in high esteem and, before January 2014, would have said that Ms. Laura Gonzales was a big part of why his office works so well. Laura was the person I interacted with the most to schedule appointments, make payments and discuss bills. She was always professional and even friendly.
Until Monday, Jan. 6, 2014, when I had a very unpleasant phone exchange with an obviously exasperated Gonzales. She was rude from the get-go, telling me that I needed to pay approximately $122 immediately. I wasn't aware that I had a remaining balance, since I'd already paid the office so much while the procedures were being done and sending a couple of checks after the fact. (Another reviewer that Yelp "didn't recommend" had a similar experience with this office.)
Gonzales was short with me when I asked if I could settle the bill for less, since I had been out of work for months. (Other providers have been willing to do this.) She offered to take off $22. I tried to negotiate more, asking her if she would accept 50 percent of the balance, and she snapped, huffed, cut me off, raised her voice and did everything but call me names. In short, she was rude. Very rude. She was nasty. She belittled. She was snarky. She threatened to send the bill to collections when I tried to explain that I couldn't pay $100 immediately. I asked to speak to someone else and she refused. Eventually, she hung up in my face. I called back and again asked to speak to someone else and she spit out, "I don't know what else you expect me to say!"
I'm sure Gonzales has worked for this office for a while and that she was normally competent at her job. Before that phone conversation, I would have said that she was an asset to your office. I don't know if Gonzales was having a bad day, or if something was going on outside of the office, but $100 should never make a person act as rudely to another person as she was to me that day.
I'm not arguing that I didn't owe money, or that I shouldn't be expected to pay the money. (I settled the balance over the next 4 months.) I'm arguing that the manner in which the money was collected was
unnecessarily harsh, rude and dehumanizing.