annoying dental stuff
So I have dental HMO insurance at work, and I'm trying to find a dentist down here. The problem is, our insurance is pretty damn crappy and hardly anyone takes it.. I have two cavities that need to get filled! The only dentists in the Santa Monica area that accept my insurance all seem to have scary reviews on Yelp (like 20+ 1-star reviews about how much they suck and try to trick you into paying for stuff and upselling and don't do a good job!). I have never seen such bad reviews before - and many many reviews, not just a random one-review yelp profile. Sigh. It's seriously like that for every dentist in Santa Monica/Venice/MDR that accepts my insurance, which is so crazy. I guess it means only the lowest of the low will take our insurance.
There was one dentist that got good reviews - I called and they aren't taking my insurance any more. :( Before when I was down here I went to the dentist on the corner near work for a cleaning because they took our insurance and although the guy was friendly enough I feel like he barely cleaned my teeth or even looked in my mouth.. I did NOT want to go there again, and especially not for real work on my mouth.. It felt like the kind of place where you go if you're a poor immigrant with no insurance and pay cash, and they have super old equipment and it seemed kind of dirty/grimy. It's super cheap even if you don't have insurance and it felt like it's where people who go to crappy dental schools and barely passed get jobs. So yeah, I guess I'm going to keep looking. Lame! I don't want to pay for the dental PPO because I don't need to get work done on my mouth very often, but I need stuff done this one time..
I guess I could always just suck it up and pay w/o insurance for someone who doesn't suck. My teeth are permanent additions to my face and my parents spent a lot of money making them pretty, so I prefer to keep them in as good of shape as possible!! I am going to try and expand my search to basically anywhere down the 405 between Santa Monica and Long Beach which is a crapton of places.. it's hard searching for dentists in that huge area on the insurance site and then looking them up to see if they got ok reviews, though. what a pain...
There was one dentist that got good reviews - I called and they aren't taking my insurance any more. :( Before when I was down here I went to the dentist on the corner near work for a cleaning because they took our insurance and although the guy was friendly enough I feel like he barely cleaned my teeth or even looked in my mouth.. I did NOT want to go there again, and especially not for real work on my mouth.. It felt like the kind of place where you go if you're a poor immigrant with no insurance and pay cash, and they have super old equipment and it seemed kind of dirty/grimy. It's super cheap even if you don't have insurance and it felt like it's where people who go to crappy dental schools and barely passed get jobs. So yeah, I guess I'm going to keep looking. Lame! I don't want to pay for the dental PPO because I don't need to get work done on my mouth very often, but I need stuff done this one time..
I guess I could always just suck it up and pay w/o insurance for someone who doesn't suck. My teeth are permanent additions to my face and my parents spent a lot of money making them pretty, so I prefer to keep them in as good of shape as possible!! I am going to try and expand my search to basically anywhere down the 405 between Santa Monica and Long Beach which is a crapton of places.. it's hard searching for dentists in that huge area on the insurance site and then looking them up to see if they got ok reviews, though. what a pain...