Monday, February 11, 2008

Colorado Springs Pediatric Dentistry's unreasonable charges

Wow, I am so glad I have a blog, now I can complain to everyone at once!

Let's just start by saying we know Griffin's teeth are B-A-D. Really BAD. When he had an infected tooth we were sent to Colorado Springs Pediatric Dentistry.

We were told he needed a new exam and xrays, then he had the teeth pulled. Our insurance covered most of it. We paid $84.25.


Then we were told to bring him back in for the spacer measurement and to get a cavity fixed. We paid $400.15 for our portion.

I brought him in today to have the spacers inserted. And was not allowed to leave, "no we won't bill you," until I paid another $398.20. And we may still owe more since now we have maxed out Griffin's dental coverage for the calendar year, it is only 42 days into the year.

We reviewed the bills, they charged us for 5 cavities and we expected this to be a one tooth extraction experience. They found several other problem areas and said they informed us of this, although neither of us recall being informed of the huge expensive this would cause. They charged significantly over what the insurance considers reasonable and expect us to pay the difference.

We are still trying to figure out why they charged $300 for sedation when our regular dentist charges $45. Why we have a bill for 5 cavities when went there for one infected tooth? We already have a dentist, why would we want this office to perform all this extra work? Why they charge so much more than the insurance considers reasonable?

We have paid almost $1000 to this office, we were referred there for one infected tooth. I believe they are taking advantage of us by overcharging and billing for work that wasn't neccessary.

From now on, our family will steer clear of Derek Kirkham DDS, and the rest of Colorado Springs Pediatric Dentistry.

UPDATE: Due to recent developments I have an update to this post. Please click here and note, I do not respond well to threats.

11 comments:

Debbie said...

I hope you file a complaint with your insurance company as well as the BBB, your state's Attorney General, the Federal Trade Commission, your state's dental board (who will sanction the dentist) and the American Pediatric Dental Association.

Kudo's to you for posting this!

Anonymous said...

Thank you for posting this. I was looking for a dentist for my daughter and was looking that this office, but now I will steer clear of them. I hope that you got the situation resolved.

polkadot said...

Amen, sister. I loved this.

A Mama's Blog (Heather) said...

This is outrageous and these charges seem very exorbitant!

I take my kids to a pediatric dentist in the Boulder area, and they have a price list they give to all patients. You know ahead of time what you will be paying, and even though we haven’t had to have a cavity filled, it was in the $200 range.

I had some orthodontic work done myself this year on my teeth and had aligners. I had molds taken of my teeth, pictures taken of my teeth, three different aligners made, 5 appointments with the orthodontist, and will have one last one in six months (just to make sure the work is holding up), and paid just over $1,000 for ALL of this. I would have never have dreamt that filling one child’s cavity would cost almost the same of four months of orthodontic work for an adult. Crazy.

I hope this office works with you, or you file a complaint. This is NOT right .

BacktoBarnwell said...

Dr.,

If you don't leave her alone, I'm going to link to her blog and write my own blog about you trying to bully her into retracting what she said, when you should know how hard it is to prove a libel case... If I were her, I'd make sure you were working on horses teeth by now.

Anonymous said...

Dear Dr. Dentist...

I am the big mouth who left a long-ass comment on the other post.

One more thing to add to my never-ending diatribe on the other post...

"Truth is the absolute defense against defamation!"

Take that and stick in your saliva-sucker!

Anonymous said...

I know these dentists and they are great people who always have the child's best interest in mind. It is not their fault that your insurance would not pay for all of the treatment but that is typical anywhere you go. I advise that you listen to there recommendations so that your child does not continue to have problems and your costs are kept low. I do not have children but if I did I would take them to Colorado Springs Pediatric Dentistry.

3boys247 said...

Dear Anonymous,

Thank you for leaving a comment.

Let me just respond to your points.

1. Being great people doesn't neccesarily mean they are great business people. I do not care for the way they do business. 97% of other medical professionals will BILL you the difference, not demand payment and insist you get a dental credit card if you can not pay before you leave.

2. WE have our child's best interest in mind. We went there for ONE tooth. They have their best interest in mind.

3. It is not their fault the insurance doesn't cover the entire amount. It IS their fault they charge MUCH MORE than what is considered reasonable charges by insurance industry standards and charge us the difference.

4. We will NOT go there again because we LOVE our regular dentist who was unable to sedate our son for the procedure.

I am sure people who enjoy that specialized, high cost dental care will go there. And they should. We will continue to go to our family dentist and receive EXCELLENT care for a REASONABLE charge.

I highly recommend Hollowbrook Family Dentistry for anyone in the Colorado Springs area. We have been patients for over 15 years and have a great relationship with the entire staff.

http://www.hollowbrookfamilydentistry.com/

Again Anonymous, thank you for your opinion, I respect the fact that you are friends with the staff and hold them in high regard. I hope you can respect my opinion based on an actual experience with their office.

3boys247 said...

p.s. I am not sure how you would take your children (if you had them) to Colorado Springs Pediatric Dentistry since you live in the Cleveland Ohio area. Would you fly in for treatment?

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