Dentist Tales

A couple years ago the dentist we'd been seeing since we moved here stopped taking our insurance.  So Craig found a new dentist and made appointments for he and Bentley.  And I forgot to do that.  And a year passed.  And then I got pregnant, so I figured there was no point in seeing a new dentist because they'd just want to take new x-rays, and x-rays and pregnancy don't mix very well.  So it was just recently that I finally went to this new dentist.  And learned that a bunch of fillings the old dentist did need to be replaced.  REPLACED!  They're only 6 years old!!!  What was wrong with that last dentist?!?!!?

A lot, actually. 

Because being a not particularly good dentist wasn't actually the only problem with Dr. Rao. 

For one thing, her receptionists were terrible.  They messed up appointments all the time.  (Craig showed up and they told him his appointment was the next day, but I still had the little appointment card to prove that I HAD written it down in my planner correctly!  Not that this did Craig any good at the time.)  They charged the wrong amounts for things.  One time when they charged Craig a dollar less than they were supposed to and he pointed this out to them, they just changed the bill rather than have to fix their mistake.  So they were essentially stealing from their employer!  They made me sit in the lobby for an hour once (until I finally complained), I think just because they forgot to tell Dr. Rao I was there.  And I witnessed one completely irate customer complaining about how he'd been charged wrong.  The dentist told him to his face that it wasn't a mistake and then as soon as he was gone, chewed out the receptionists for messing up.  (I started looking at my bills more closely after that...)

It was all so very wrong and poorly run.

But what bothered me about Dr. Rao even more than her poor dentistry skills and her awful receptionists was the fact that she seemed to be in love with my husband.  Really.

Consider the evidence:

I met with her, had 9 cavities filled.  (Don't judge me: I hadn't been to the dentist during college and had had a baby.  Big mistake to combine those two things.)

A week later, Craig meets with her, has his teeth cleaned.  Several days later, he gets a hand-written note in the mail expressing her delight at having met him and saying she looks forward to continuing to work with him.  I wonder, Where's my hand-written letter?

Six months later I get my teeth cleaned.  The next week, Craig goes in to get his teeth cleaned but before they do this, they pull him aside to take his picture.

Six months later the exact same thing happens again.  I think they ended up taking his picture three times!  They never once even mentioned taking my picture.

And then, finally, when we had our last appointments with this lady, knowing our insurance was no longer deemed acceptable by her, she took it upon herself to personally clean Craig's teeth!  Seriously.  Have you ever had your teeth cleaned by someone other than the dentist's hygienist?

Unbelievable.  You'd think if she was going to be so obvious about it, she could have either given us a discount or not done such a lousy job on my fillings!