Resolved: Aspen Dental - Assistants don't know how to code for insurance.
Aspen agreed that the office clerks coded my procedure wrong therefore not only did they remove the extra charges but also gave us a refund for the over charges I had already paid
My procedure was to pull all my lower teeth and make a denture. They drew up a contract for $6791.00 which my Financial responsibility was $2258.00 and was paid thru Care Credit over 12 months.
Now after a year Aspen decided that they are owed more than the original contract. They tried this with my wife also but she fought them and the excuse they used was the girls in the office didn't code it properly to Cigna there for they wrote it off.
I've tried several times to clear this up because I'm sure that this is the same scenario. Now they are threatening to send the balance to a collection agency,
Reason of review: Problems with payment.
Monetary Loss: $1090.
Preferred solution: Let the company propose a solution.
Aspen Dental Pros: Extremely dissatisfied.
Aspen Dental Cons: Work only to their benefit, Worst customer service ever experienced.
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I'm having similar problem with them in Illinois. I was unaware that under my insurance I wasn't suppose to be billed until my dental plan paid them.
They are probably ripping off many people who don't know there is a balance in their accounts. They are suppose to follow the specific fee schedule under your insurance; though they have their own math I believe. In some case like mine, they are not to bill the customer ahead of time; they suppose to wait because they have a network agreement. This agreement was probably signed and a legal binding.
Make sure you cancel any future visits as well. I had a cleaning after the negative balance was showing, and they still are holding all my money until that is cleared with insurance. Even to make it worst they never submitted that claim over a month. They stated they did but my insurance has no record of submission or rejection.
Ticked about this I went to my insurer and waiting to see if their grievance and other departments can work this out with them. Otherwise going to right my State Attorney and BBB until this is resolved.
Still baffles me they didn't even know what EOB stands for. Beware of them they will hold your money and try not to give it away and delay.
It is impossible to predict with 100% accuracy what an insurance company will pay. The patient always owes anything an insurance company does not pay.
Go gripe to your insurance company. It is NEVER wise to pull all the lower teeth. Even a couple of canine roots even with the gumline is a tremendous help holding a lower denture in.
Aspen never encountered a tooth they would not like to extract. That is why many call Aspen is a "one stop chop shop."
It was at the recomendation of Aspen that is they remove all I the lower theeth and do the impression the same day for temporary dentures. I don't disagree with the estimate being off a little but to come up with over 1000.
A year later is a bit questionable. Plus the codes the were used for the extractions were different for each tooth.
Like I said the same stage thing happened with my wife's bill. But then after a review they agreed that the wrong codes were submitted.
It is not unusual for come teeth to be extracted simply, and others surgically, thus having different codes. It NEVER works well to extract front AND back teeth and take impressions immediately.
You will have no stable base on which the denture should rest. The technique universally taught in prosthetics texts, IN RARE CASES WHERE NO TEETH CAN BE SAVED, is to extract all the back teeth, and allowing healing for 3 months. THEN impressions can be taken, and only the front teeth removed when the dentures are delivered.
You did not think to get a second opinion when these bandits recommended pulling ALL your lower teeth? No alarm bells went off in your head?
I don't have any experience with dentistry so I didn't question their procedures.