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| - Be careful when you enter Red Hills Dental as they are salespeople first, and dental practitioners second.
Please note that this review generally refers to Red Hills Dental's questionable business practices and not necessarily the work they perform. With that disclaimer, please read about my experience and make your own assessment.
Red Hills Dental has invested a large amount of capital in advanced, high-resolution cameras and equipment and will take as many pictures as necessary to capture the worst possible view of the patients' teeth/gums to instill FEAR into patients and to get their agreement on EXPENSIVE procedures that may be unnecessary.
Here's an analogy:
A customer takes his SUV truck into a tire shop for a rotation. The friendly staff use their high-tech equipment to take many photos of the tires and zoom-in on the residual dirt, mud and grime between the tire treads and present these images to the customer suggesting purchase of new tires! I know it's a crude analogy, but keep in mind that if you see an up-close and dirty picture of a tire, you potentially could be conned into suspecting that you need a new tires as you have never seen tires "in that light"... and this is where I want all readers of this review to be cognizant of.
On with my experience...
Due to relatively good reviews here on Yelp, I decided to give them a go. I also recommended this office to my brother. My brother's impression was that this office has nice staff, top-of-the-line equipment and performs very good dental work. However, he felt OVERCHARGED, UP-SOLD, PERSUADED, and PRESSURED to get the deep-cleaning and crown job that he ultimately received via his insurance.
Being the objective person that I am, I anticipated that my brother may have been exaggerating and that he had a skewed perspective due to having had his teeth and gums poked and prodded at. So, I decided to make an appointment to get a cleaning since it had been nearly 10 months since my last appointment in California (I'm new in town). This is where things get interesting.
The front desk staff was wonderful and the ambiance of the office was great. I was seen quickly by a dental technician who proceeded to take X-rays and pictures of my teeth/gums for 15 to 20 minutes; quite a few images, to say the least. They then showed me the high-res images of my teeth and gums with yellow build-up of tarter - all from a perspective I had not seen before... similar to the tire analogy with mud and dirt. They used these images to instill fear into me and compel me to submit to a multi-visit deep cleaning for $420.
What really saddened me most was that I clearly told the staff and the doctor that I was new in town and simply wanted my first experience at this office to be with a general X-ray and cleaning. Nevertheless, I was met with pushy sales tactics as they presented me with a spiel on their teeth whitening solutions, the Invisalign procedure and replacement crowns options - all things I clearly indicated I did not want but was forced to sit-in on, as if I were at a time-share seminar.
Lastly, in testing the sensitivity of my left teeth and the integrity of my existing crowns, the doctor repeatedly asked that I bite AS HARD AS I COULD against a dental-grade pen that he had inserted into my mouth; I resorted to pretending that I was biting as hard as I could just to get the exam over with as I didn't want to feel any more discomfort just to "prove" to the doctor that I may have sensitive left tooth. Ultimately, I had come into the office to get a teeth cleaning! I was then told that the doctor/hygienist would NOT perform a general cleaning on my teeth as I MUST opt for the deep cleaning!
On my drive home, I had the realization that I had never been "bullied" by a doctor until this point. The following week, I visited another dental office (A-1 dental) and was provided free X-rays and an excellent cleaning job for under $70; this compares to the $420 estimate and refusal to do a regular cleaning at Red Hill Dental.
It's been over a month since I visited Red Hills Dental but I'm still left with great distaste for their practices and wanted to share it with others who may benefit from my story.
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