1 /5 Jim Rucci: My wife and I have been patients for over 30 years and the dental work has always been excellent. However, since Dr. Hughes sold his business to the Hues Dental corporation the billing process has not been transparent, and after our visit this week I’m once again considering finding a new dental office. Last year I realized my wife and I had been charged different amounts for the same twice-a-year cleaning service, $184 for my wife and $307 for me. The same codes were used on both insurance billings. Our UnitedHealthCare Medicare advantage plan pays only $500 per year so most of our work is paid out of pocket. After waiting a month for an explanation while the office tried to get an answer from some other unknown entity (the corporate office?), I was told they had been using the wrong billing category for me…even though the billing codes were identical for both my wife and I. I did receive a credit applied to my account, although I’m not sure it covered all the discrepancies because I no longer had our older billings to check how long this had been going on.
In March, my wife broke a tooth and was told that she would need an implant. The “Treatment Case” document outlining the process had a lot of information and fees that I had a hard time understanding. So I went over everything with the office’s billing person and made notes on the form about the fees we would be charged for the 3 required visits:
Extraction and bone graft - $1,359
Post implant - $2,750
Crown placement - $1,984
After my wife’s short visit with the Periodontist two days ago for the extraction and bone graft, I was asked to pay $1,750 for that service. After questioning that amount, I was told that insurance companies change the amounts often, sometimes every month. I questioned why that’s even relevant since we’re paying out of pocket. At that point, she said okay, I’ll charge you what was quoted less than a month ago, $1,359.
Needless to say, these recent interactions make it very difficult to trust the integrity of Hues’ billing procedures.