Apparently Children's Dental Care Specialists has a policy that once a bill (NO MATTER WHAT THE AMOUNT) has gone to collections, Children's Dental Care Specialists WILL NO LONGER SEE A PATIENT, or patients within that family.
Does your practice understand that there was an issue with our insurance company that we are still working to rectify? Does your practice care that we had extenuating circumstances which caused us to be severely behind in our paying of medical bills (listed below)? Our dental plan is supposed to take care of biyearly dental visits. However, this past winter, when my (then) two year old daughter smashed her teeth into the hard plastic of her child car seat, I brought her in for an emergency appointment at the Eagan office. The appointment went fine and an X-ray showed that there was no serious damage to the roots of her teeth. After the emergency appointment, our dental insurance carrier - Delta, paid for the emergency appointment.
However, when my daughter went for her 6 month exam, apparently Delta didn't pay for it. We found out after we received a statement from Children's Dental Care Specialists. I'm not sure if the emergency appointment was billed wrong by Children's Dental Care Specialists or if the insurance carrier made a mistake. We are still attempting to rectify this with the insurance carrier, but in the meantime we received statements with a balance of $59 for the biyearly visit that our insurance carrier wouldn't cover.
In early October of 2014, I attempted to make another 6 month appointment with a dentist and I was told that the account had gone to collections and that we would need to find another dental office. In other words we were no longer welcome as patients at Children's Dental Care Specialists. I understand that when clients don't pay their bills it can be hard to run a practice, but I was quite astonished to find out that this is how a dental office would treat a client over an outstanding balance of $59. I have heard of dental and medical practices that will sometimes add a finance charge if a bill remains unpaid for more than 30 days, but this treatment of our family is beyond reprehensible.
In June 2014, I was laid off, and I was already more than 9 months behind on several thousands of dollars of medical bills for my hospitalization due to a breakthrough epileptic seizure in october of 2013, and a double myringotomy procedure as a result of a severe double ear infection, which I suffered for 7 weeks in March and April, 2014. Then, this past July my wife had to have a tonsillectomy as advised by an ENT for recurring colds and sinus infections. She was basically in a state of recovery for more than 10 days. Do any of these extenuating circumstances count for anything? Couldn't this practice show some compassion and empathy for patients that are going through some hard times. read more