Mark H Eichenlaub, DDS

I have an irrational fear of people sticking things in my teeth. No, not irrational, a genuine hatred of those people who make it their life’s work to stick things in my teeth and tell me to floss.
I also purchased cheap dental insurance. Cheap because my company’s dental plan was like getting mugged at gun point and having the audacity to tell you how crappy the mugging business is these days. So I chose to find it on my own and I thought I had a good deal with Assurant with decent benefits.
During my phone calls, they were very nice but said they were not very busy with all the retired patrons snow bound in that week.
First visit; The receptionist tells me how awful Assurant is and gives me a long drawn out story as to why they aren’t making any money off Assurant customers. So to alleviate their inability to make money, they will be charging me what they deem a acceptable co-​pay. I should have left right there, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt and Assurant had yet to send me the details about my costs in addition to my pre-​payment plan.
15 minutes go by, 20… 30… 40… still not even a «sorry we are running behind» from them. Come to find out, it’s just the dentist and a receptionist that may or may not be there past 4. Oh did I mention they are closed from around 11 to 1:30 for lunch… have no evening hours or anything resembling convenient for people who are not retired?
55 minutes late for my first appointment… not going well, but at least I leave without them trying to drum up a bunch of unnecessary services. $ 30 and I’m gone.
Fast forward a few weeks and I go to get x-​rays based on a lot of pain from grinding my teeth. Again, since he is the only person doing anything in the office, this took forever. And don’t you just love it when they get to stand behind a wall while you get bombarded by a x-​ray machine from 1965? Oh… but now I need a crown and a bite guard… that will be $ 50 for the x-​rays, $ 250 for the bite guard and $ 599 estimate for a crown, which I think is way overpriced given the fact I actually purchased a dental plan.
Come to find out, Assurant doesn’t allow dentists who accept their pre-​paid dental plan to charge whatever they want, so the $ 330 I paid should have been $ 150 or less.
I confronted them about it and they gave me the same sob story about not making any money off of Assurant plan members and that I could «Google dentistry and find a cheaper alternative or use a dental school»… because again, they made it abundantly clear that I have a crappy dental plan and that everyone else out there may just be using inferior products.
THIS is why I hate dentists. They drill your teach and then try to screw you even more because you didn’t buy expensive enough insurance.
Avoid at all costs, unless you are over 50, have a LOT of time on your hands and excellent dental insurance.