Aspen Dental Near Me Now – Surviving on a meager $1,300 a month, 87-year-old Theresa Ferritto was worried about the cost when her dentist told her she needed two teeth pulled.
He thought an oral surgeon would be too expensive. So he decided to try a dental chain that promotes strong discounts in its advertisements. He went to an Aspen Dental office just outside of Cleveland.
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Ferritto said Aspen Dental doesn’t just pull teeth, but insists on a full exam. She was perplexed when they finally handed her a four-page long treatment plan. Total price: $7,835.
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Ferritto couldn’t afford it, but Aspen Dental signed him up for a special credit card, with monthly payments of $186 for five years. She blames herself for signing the papers.
After a day of police and two arrests, Ferritto asked his son for help. He called Aspen Dental to complain, but he said it didn’t go anywhere. Then he turned to the state attorney general.
Aspen Dental took all the charges from his credit card for the treatments he had not yet received. But the company said that the $2,540 it was charged for two fillings and cleanings was appropriate.
Aspen Dental charged Ferritto $350 for an antibiotic placed near the teeth the dentist had to pull, a charge that other dentists said didn’t make sense. There were four separate charges for an antibacterial rinse, similar to Listerine, for $129. There was also a $149 charge for an electric toothbrush that Ferritto didn’t even know she had until she recently found a bag of Aspen Dental from his garage and found him inside.
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When asked if Ferritto was exploited, Aspen Dental CEO Robert Fontana said, “I hope the team was clear about what they needed and that they fully understood what they were getting into. And I hope, you know, she made the choices she thought were right for her.”
Aspen Dental is a chain of nearly 350 offices in 22 states managed by a private equity firm. It’s part of a rapidly growing industry of corporate dental practices, many of which specialize in serving people who can’t afford to go to the dentist, a group that many dentists ignore.
In marketing to people who haven’t seen a dentist in years, Aspen Dental often gives new patients treatment plans that cost thousands of dollars. The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) and FRONTLINE spent months investigating Aspen Dental and found that the same business model that makes Aspen Dental accessible to people who are short on money can also lock people into debt and has led to complaints from patients that they are overloaded or useless data. treatments.
Former employees say Aspen Dental trained them in high-pressure sales. Corporate management scrutinizes the production of dentists and staff on a daily basis. And internal documents show that dentists receive bonuses paid as key production goals are met.
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“You have people who are not dentists, who are in management … breathing down the doctor’s back,” said Jenny Hayes, who worked as an office manager for Aspen Dental in the Chicago area last year. past “There are goals and if you don’t meet your goals, then you lose your job.”
Aspen Dental denies that its dentists have stronger financial incentives than other dentists or that their bonuses affect treatments. Fontana, founder and CEO of Aspen Dental, based in East Syracuse, NY, said dentists don’t do unnecessary treatments because “it’s just not in their DNA.”
“I’m not even sure what corporate dentistry means, because we have no influence over dentistry,” Fontana said.
He said Aspen Dental frees up dentists to focus solely on patients, because the company handles back-office functions such as marketing, accounting and billing. In fact, dentists own and control all practices, Fontana says. All but four states prevent anyone who is not a dentist from owning a practice on the assumption that dentists are trained and motivated to put patients before profits.
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But Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, questions whether dentists in corporate dental chains are free from corporate pressure to maximize profits. Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, would not talk about Aspen Dental specifically, but has had committee investigators looking into the company and other private equity chains for months.
“Because when private equity firms are involved,” explained Grassley, “you have to understand that their motivation is to make money. And they’re not dentists. And dentists should make the determination … of what which is good for the teeth … Not a private equity manager on Wall Street.”
Aspen Dental says it serves people who might not otherwise go to a dentist. Forty percent of Americans have a family member who quit going to the dentist because they couldn’t pay for it, according to a survey by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Fontana says Aspen Dental is looking for ways to make it easier for those people to get to their offices.
Their offices are easy to see in shopping centers, often near fast-food restaurants. Posters advertise a free examination and X-rays. Many of his new patients walk in the door without an appointment. Aspen Dental accepts most insurances and if the patient is still short on cash, they will sign you up on day one for “no interest” credit cards through GE Capital or Chase.
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Aspen Dental specializes in dentures, which they do in every office. The consulting room has a table of dentures to choose from, ranging from the no-frills basic model to the “precision-crafted” ComfiLytes, which come in 27 shades. Ads on the Internet offer dentures for sale for $ 249. Their commercial tells stories of a man in pain from a poor denture and a woman too embarrassed to smile.
Aspen Dental insists that all new patients receive a thorough exam. So even if someone just wants a routine cleaning or needs a broken tooth fixed, Aspen Dental presents a treatment plan for any problems that may arise years later. Fontana says this approach is what’s best for patients, because neglected teeth and gums can lead to serious problems. Several former employees, however, describe the initial exam as a sales tactic to maximize revenue on each new patient.
“People come into the office with maybe a toothache and come out with a treatment plan that maybe the dentist said we need to extract all your teeth,” said Jenny Hayes, the former office manager. in Illinois. “They were made to stop in the director’s office and sit through an intense consultative sales process that they didn’t really negotiate for when they walked in the door. I had people literally break down and cry in my office. And it happened quite regularly.”
The average treatment plan presented to new patients runs $4,450 in Aspen Dental’s main production offices, according to an internal company document obtained by CPI and FRONTLINE. The company says the extensive treatment is a reflection of the patients they attract.
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“A typical patient is probably 45 to 65 years old and they’re just struggling to make ends meet,” said Fontana, Aspen’s CEO. “They’re taking this week’s paycheck to pay last month’s mortgage, making their car payment, trying to put their kids through school and, unfortunately, dentistry can become discretionary.”
Donna Kelce of Des Moines, Iowa, fits the profile. At age 55, she hadn’t been to a dentist in 15 years. He had no dental insurance and didn’t think he could afford it. Besides, his teeth never bothered him until a space started to form between two front teeth. Embarrassed, she finally went to an Aspen Dental office after seeing one of their advertisements.
Kelce was x-rayed and sent to a consultation room, where a dental assistant gave him a treatment plan. Kelce’s gaze rested on one particular word.
“I could feel the blood kind of running down my face, thinking, ‘Oh my God. Dentures,” Kelce said.
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Kelce remembers that the dentist told her she had no real option but to get dentures because she had lost too much bone for implants. She wasn’t sure how she could afford Aspen Dental’s $3,700 bill. But then the office manager signed him up for a “no interest” credit card through Chase. Excited, Kelce thought she had a deal.
She returned in late November 2009 to have 13 teeth pulled. But she said the dentist pulled and pulled and couldn’t get all the teeth out, broke one at the root. Kelce wondered if so much bone was gone, because teeth don’t come out easily. After three hours, the dentist still had six teeth to pull, but said she could do no more because she had already given Kelce the maximum dose of Novocain.
Aspen Dental sent Kelce to one of his former dentists that he could see that evening. Dr. Jessica Lawson looked at Kelce’s teeth and concluded that they did not need to be pulled. But he got the job done so Kelce could wear his dentures. She suggested that Kelce report the incident to the Iowa Dental Board. Lawson himself wrote a letter to the council.
“Having worked at Aspen Dental myself for a short period of time, I am well aware of the type of care that can enhance, especially if the
