If you have been a patient of Aspen Dental and you believe that you have received unacceptable dental care resulting in:

- Physical injury associated with the dental care provided

- Unnecessary, excessive or questionable dental treatment

- Poorly fitting or cosmetically unacceptable dentures

- Protracted pain after your dental procedure

- Emotional Distress as a result of your dental visit

- Financial abuse which you cannot resolve with Aspen Dental

You may have a Legal Right to financial compensation.

A multi-state Mass Tort Lawsuit is forming against the Aspen Dental Group. If you would like to have your complaint against Aspen Dental considered for inclusion in this action, please send a complete description of your “Aspen” experience, including your name, contact email address and phone number to the following email address:

[email protected]

Attn: Aspen Dental Management Mass Tort Unit

we are requesting that in your email you identify your complaint as being in one of the three following categories:

1.DENTAL MALPRACTICE – In which you have been physically injured by their dental “care.”

2.CONSUMER FRAUD – Includes cases in which office personnel of Aspen Dental used high pressure sales tactics designed to take your money with false promises of providing competent dental health care.

3.Combination of Malpractice and Consumer Fraud.

You can remain anonymous!

When you email the description of your complaint for inclusion in this action, simply request that we assign you a confidential identity. As a new patient, a reasonable person would not expect Aspen Dental to take unfair advantage of a dental problem – after all, they are considered to be a healthcare facility; however, when you sit down with the Office Manager to discuss your dental treatment plan it becomes clear that your money, not your health, is Aspen's primary objective. The job of the Aspen office manager is to force you into accepting the most costly and extensive dental work possible. This is termed “conversion” and is against the law.

Aspen Dental rewards its employees with financial bonus incentives for exceeding monthly production goals. This bonus system is based upon Aspen's internal use of “metrics” which pressures each office to compete against other Aspen offices. Unfortunately, since Aspen’s Management Team is composed of individuals whose background is in “consumer retail” – not in healthcare - they operate the dental care facility as a retail business in which you are not viewed as a patient - instead, you are simply a paying customer. Aspen Dental’s motto is: “To create a happy, paying patient.” But, unfortunately once you pay, you quickly discover that you are not happy.

This Mass Tort Lawsuit will effectively make Aspen Dental accountable for their acts through the unified and coherent voice of thousands of patients who have been wrongfully injured by Aspen Dental.

This Mass Tort Lawsuit will channel thousands of patient complaints into a collectively powerful force which will finally stop Aspen.

The absolute WORST dental chain ever! Due to limited insurance dental coverage in my area I had no choice but to use Aspen Dental as they were the only local in-network dentist. On my initial visit they refused to treat my sore tooth, instead they took a dozen x-rays of my mouth and summarized my "treatment plan" which exceeded $6, 000 (my insurance only covers $1, 200 per year). A few (3+ hour each) appointments later with a dentist who barely spoke English and I now have a temporary crown. I received a letter in the mail today from Aspen threatening to charge me the full amount of the permanent crown if I do not return to their office within the next week to finish with this tooth. Even though my out of pocket fee to finish service on this tooth and to get the permanent crown is $349.00 they are threatening to charge me $1, 074.00 if I do not keep my appointment on June 1st, 2011 (less than 1 week from today). I have received bills in the mail for services already paid, etc. I cannot say enough negative things about this company. They are truly the WORST dental chain anywhere! After I finish with this appointment I will rather go to an out of network dentist provider and pay more rather than waste another minute of my time and hard earned money on this place. They should be shut down! If you care about your teeth and your wallet, DO NOT go to Aspen Dental...HORRIBLE SERVICE and they will RIP YOU OFF!

After following up with Amy at Aspen Dental Patient Satisfaction on 5/2/11, regarding being sent a bill for $172.40, she concurred that I do not owe them that amount and stated that I would receive a corrected statement/ledger...and they still have a credit amount for me. Amy today again said she will send the corrected ledger out to me as I have still not received one.
HOWEVER...my question regarding the denial of payment toward my permanent partial took an interesting turn. I was told by Amy on 5/2/10 that the payment request would be resubmitted to Ameritas (although she seemed certain that it would be denied after I told her the insurance company said the wrong code was submitted and there was no indication that they were being billed for a permanent/replacement partial and they received no information from Aspen Dental that I had a temporary partial prior to that and for how long).
After not hearing back from Aspen Dental or Ameritas, I again spoke to Amy at Aspen Dental patient satisfaction today 5/18/11 and she said payment request was resubmitted on 5/3/11 but again she was certain the insurance would again deny the permanent partial charge due to "frequency". I asked her to explain what frequency meant and she said my insurance covers a partial every 5 years. I explained to her that I was specifically told at the Mount Dora, Fl office that the first partial I rec'd was temporary and to be replaced after 6 months with the permanent partial. She tried to tell me that there is no difference between a temporary partial and a permanet partial but that after 6 months one would have to be replaced anyway after the gums have receded...would that not make the first one a temporary then? As a matter of fact Miss Schneider (Mt. Dora office) herself left me a voicemail message in January of 2011 requesting that I come in to get fitted for the PERMANENT partial. I went back in February for that.
In an email from Miss Samantha Fikes with Aspen Dental Patient Satisfaction back in November 2010, she stipulated that the permanent partial would NOT BE BILLED to my insurance company until after it was placed sometime after the 6 month period. I quote Miss Fikes below:
" I do show that you still do have to get your permanent partial. We did not send the charge for this to your insurance carrier yet because it is not placed."
Yet this morning when I contacted my insurance company, I was told that Aspen Dental did not bill for a temporary partial back in August 2010 (when I received the temporary partial) but billed for a PERMANENT partial which I did not get until about April 2011...interesting!
The Ameritas rep Liz said: had Aspen Dental billed for a temporary partial there would have been a different rate for that...ofcourse less than a permanent partial. The insurance rep said if they were to correct their billing to correctly reflect the charges for the temporary partial I received in August 2010, then Aspen Dental would have to reimburse the insurance company as they had overbilled at that point.
I called my insurance company again just to be sure and spoke to Mark and was told that had Aspen dental billed correctly in the first instance for a temporary partial, then I would have been qualified for the insurance payment toward the permanent partial after the 6 month period.
So! here's the synopsis of what Aspen Dental did:
They billed my insurance company for a permanent partial when I only had a temporary and they were paid 50% of $599.00 (eligible PPO charge on a PERMANENT partial) by insurance company...and took payment of 50% from my out of pocket account, then they rebilled the insurance company for "prosthetics" verses what they billed for the first time "denture partial" and when that payment request was denied by the insurance company...Aspen Dental took not $599.00 but $720.00 from my account! And as if that was not bad enough tried to bill me over and above what I should pay...the $172.40 as stated above!
At a time like this, when people are experiencing such economic hardships, is this how Aspen Dental makes its money, by ripping people off? Does this unethical behaviour extend to the Patient Satisfaction department and beyond also? I would like a written explanation/breakdown of all the PPO charges you have applied to the out of pocket account I have with you in the amount of $1412.60 (this I will compare to my insurance statements). Also I as well as my insurance company - Ameritas, would like to know if you are going to make the necessary corrections and ACTUALLY bill them for a temporary partial, since you have already been paid 50% by them for a permanent partial & 50% by myself and have also taken over 100% payment for a permanent partial untop of that from my account because you claim Ameritas denied payment of that permanent partial.
I know your organization has to make money but doing so dishonestly might not be in your best interest. I look forward to your written response.

Jennifer Ebanks

cc Better Businsess Bureau
Pam Bondi - Florida Attorney General

This dental office is a complete scam. The appointment was easy enough to get, but its probably because they are such a complete rip off. I had to wait 45min before getting called back.. only to have 25 xrays taken with this plastic thing being jabbed into my gums. Then walked back to a completely out in the open examining room with a tv blaring and no explanation on how to turn it down. The actual dentist walked in introduced himself and stuck a mirror in my mouth. Looked for five seconds, said looks good no cavities let me get our office manager to talk to you about scheduling a cleaning. I said, well aren't we going to.clean my teeth today, he replied oh no you have to come back to do that. Then the office manager came and took me to her office. She explained I would need two cleanings because it had been awhile since I got my teeth cleaned. Then she showed me what my insurance would cover. Which was only half. I asked why was it so expensive I have amazing insurance, I have never had to pay for anything. She said it was because I needed two cleanings. I said than you very much and walked out. Horrible... horrible place never ever going back no matter how bad my teeth hurt. When I left not only did I have a headache but my teeth actually hurt and they only took xrays.

I had not been to a dentist in years, and I now have dental coverage through my employer and thought I should see a dentist. I went to aspen dental because it was close to me and covered, and the commercials made it seem like a decent place. I had an appointment, and after sitting in the waiting room for close to 25 minutes, they called me back to do my xrays (which they said was standard for new patients). The girl doing the xrays had obviously not done it very often, as she had quite the time getting the tools in my mouth and actually taking the pictures. She struggled through doing each one, and it got to be rather painful having to take the tools in and out of my mouth repeatedly because she wasn't getting a good picture. After that whole ordeal was over, I was brought into the exam room, and waited there for about another 20-25 minutes to see a dentist. She finally showed up, pulled up my rays, told me all 4 of my wisdom teeth were infected and would need to come out, also that I needed a two stage intensive cleaning. Looked in my mouth briefly, scraped a few teeth, and that was that. They sat me down with a "billing specialist" who printed up an estimate of what it would cost me to have my wisdom teeth out and the intensive cleaning that was prescribed. He told me it would be $250 for my wisdom teeth after my insurance payed what they would pay, and that each phase of the cleaning would be $125. That totals to about $500. He told me I had to pay the $250 for the oral surgeon before I could make the appointment, and since I didn't have the money at the moment, I would have to call back to schedule the appointment. They eventually called me to set up the procedure, at which point they went through all the pre-surgery instructions with me, which was fine. Then came time to take my payment, which again, I was told would be $250. I gave the girl on the phone my card info, she told me I was all set and that they'd mail me a receipt.

The next day I look at my bank account and see a $325 charge. I called back to the office and was on hold for 10 minutes before someone told me why there was more of a charge than I was initially told. She told me it was because of the $75 insurance deductible. The procedure was $250 AND I needed to pay my deductible. When I told her that was not what I was told NOT EVEN 24 HOURS EARLIER, and I did not authorize a$325 charge I authorized a $250 charge, she put me back on hold while she spoke with the "office manager". She gets back on the phone and says they'll refund the $75 but that I will be responsible for paying it when I come to the appointment for the procedure, and that it will take 10-14 business days for the refund to clear the bank and show up on my statement. Anyone who's ever had a refund knows it does not take 10-14 days for it to post to your account. I then proceeded to tell her to cancel my appointment and refund the whole $325 becaues I was not happy with the way it was handled and I would have the procedure done elsewhere. I would encourage anyone else to do the same.

BEWARE OF WHAT YOU ARE PAYING FOR ASK QUESTIONS AND VERIFY WHAT YOU ARE REALLY BEING CHARGED