I had a dental crown placed on a tooth. A few weeks later it started having some sensitivity to hot and cold. I called and asked them about that and they insisted that was normal for the first few weeks. It never got better and then a few weeks later I ended up with my face swollen. I went to see another dentist for a second opinion. It was that dentist who told me that my tooth was infected and needed a root canal treatment. I couldn’t believe it. He said the cause was likely because my dental crown had open margins. He even showed it to me on the x-ray. I’m surprised my dentist didn’t notice this because it looked pretty huge. I contacted the office to try and get a refund because I ended up having to pay for a brand new crown and a root canal treatment, but they refused saying what I do with the crown after they placed it is up to me. Shouldn’t they have x-rayed the crown before sending me on my way? Is there any way for me to get my money back for this?
Pamela
Dear Pamela,
You’d think that the fact that they caused you to need an emergency dental appointment would stir them to realize they’d made a mistake. Though I have not examined you, based on your description, your dentist violated the quality of care. Though x-raying the crown is not the standard. Your dentist should have run an explorer around the margins in order to check that there is a good fit to the crown. They either didn’t do that or didn’t want to fix it after realizing there was not a good fit. Neither of those options works in their favor.
The downside to this is that dental malpractice suits are hard to win and rarely pay enough to justify them. However, there are some things you can do that may influence your dentist.
First, you can threaten to go to the dental board. That will be something they want to avoid. If that doesn’t work, you can ask the dentist who diagnosed the actual problem to stand by you and speak to the dentist. Sometimes, a peer putting a bit of pressure makes the biggest difference of all. You can also tell him you will write a negative review warning other patients about how their work led to you needing an emergency dental procedure and he refused to make it right. Finally, you can ask a dentist to write a threatening letter on official letterhead.
Generally, one or a combination of these will help you get your refund. I’d also find another dentist if I were you. This one doesn’t quite seem up to snuff.
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