Ruben Mendez, DDS

Dr. Mendez is a nice man and decent dentist. however shortly after I get a crown there he stopped taking myself insurance, and now several months later the crown has to be removed.
Perhaps not his fault but I thought from the beginning it did not fit right, but he said it is normal, and now this crown did not prevent me from needing a root canal
I give a mediocre score.

Look out for this guy, or year ago he told me all my teeth were going to fall out and refused to clean my teeth. Then I went in for a teeth cleaning and a co-​pay of $ 50. After that I had pain in my tooth and he showed me a picture which showed stains all over my teeth. This is right after he cleaned my teeth so I asked him why didn’t he clean no stains he said it’s too hard to see. This guy is a sneaky jive guy I would keep away from him for sure.

The worse customer service the girls at the front desk are super rude as you walk in they don’t greet you at all I waited seated with pain for 20 min without any staff asking how can I help you or I’ll be right with you !
That just makes you think OMG how will the dentist be if this is just the front ??? Horrible place
Western dental in Palm Springs is one great place to go !!!

If you have HMO dental insurance STAY AWAY form this office! Says he takes the insurance but don’t question the charges or the way they do things otherwise they put off your care and eventually request your transfer to another dentist as it just happened to our family!
Our cleanings, in September of 2011, were quick and involved a polish only. I was told, as another Unilocal reviewer stated, your insurance doesn’t cover the full cleaning. My insurance strongly disagreed with this statement and discussed this with the dentist’s office. Then I was informed that our next cleanings will include the scaling necessary. Scheduled for early June. Was cancelled by the dentist office and rescheduled to early September, cancelled by the dental office again and rescheduled to mid-​October. Day before my daughter’s appts., on Oct 9^th, I was called and informed that the office couldn’t verify my coverage so the appts for the next day were cancelled. Huh??? Called the office as soon as a got the message, asked them to keep appts and please call the insurance again as there is no problem on our side. Was called back and told that Dr. Mendez is no longer taking HMO insurance, wow it would have been nice if we were given advanced notice so we wouldn’t have wasted so much time. Imagine my surprise upon calling the insurance company this AM to find out that Dr. Mendez actually asked for my family to be transferred to a different provider, that he is still taking the HMO insurance but obviously not wanting to provide the CONTRACTUAL care he agreed to.
I could go on about other up charges and instances but it really boils down to this.
Dr. Mendez signed a contract to provide care to California Dental policy holders.
He is not providing that care.

I love the staff. They are friendly and make the scary task of getting a root canal some-​what pleasant. They made me laugh and that’s hard when you hear a drill in the background. I highly recommend them and now I can say I have a dentist in the desert.

Dr Mendez is a decent Dentist. My dental work held up. The problem is his staff is trying too hard to up-​sell everyone and work around insurances for cash. Good dentist, questionable office staff.