Village Dental Care

Omg no

I had services performed by this dr.’s office. (January before last) I had insurance to cover my services before I went & it was a first time seeing this Dr’s office. Sure the medical staff were nice, but it was clear that universal precautions were not being taken. Gloves were being removed fingers put in my mouth, then the same gloves replaced then put on then replaced. No masks were worn by staff during any procedure. In addition they had “issues” completing “pre approval” requests from my insurance company & had multiple issues with paperwork not being submitted on time causing delays in being seen by the dr. All in all services were far from professional in my opinion.

A year after services were rendered I got a card in the mail asking me to come back for another dental appointment. That card QUICKLY went in the garbage, proof they had my correct address. Six months went by then all of a sudden out of the blue their billing office calls me saying I owe them money for something they claim they did for me? I advised them when I was there as long as my insurance covered services that was fine. At the time I had no extra cash to pay for anything my insurance company didn't cover & I told them this. After all I was just going in for a cleaning & a check up. Both Chuck & the Dr. were in the room at the time & no one else was, I was in the chair… Now this billing clerk on the phone refused to tell me how much I owed saying because of my poor attitude she had gone ahead & turned it over to a collections agency meanwhile I haven't even received a bill in the mail or anything just some random phone call right? Well when I asked if I should go to their office to resolve this matter she told me if I had came down there that she would call the police & have me reported as a terrorist!!!!! She said to me "I just needed to be responsible for my own health care & pay my bill". I told her I was responsible for my bills by having my insurance company cover "regular routine" dental services prior to making the appointment in the first place. She also said that since I was on the phone with her so much why don't I get a job in a call center someplace. I told her I had worked in a call center before but a lot of them had been moved overseas. She then suggested that I should move there. When I advised her that there I could get universal dental care provided by the government there she really didn't like that. When I pointed out to her that it was because her paperwork wasn't submitted to my insurance company on time & caused a delay in services she didn't want to hear that either. They even tried to "claim" they had been sending me statements to my address, but the only thing that ever arrived from them was that stupid card in the mail to invite me back for another appointment. When I asked why I hadn't received a bill the offices response was I should have called them??? Keep in mind that this literally almost a year & a half ago!!! When I asked her well about how clearly she had my phone # why didn't she call me earlier than this? She refused to answer that. In the mean time my phone hasn't changed & neither has my address. Her mistake was in ASSUMING since the mail wasn't getting sent back to her that it was a valid mailing address for me.

In attempting to resolve this matter with them by having to call back 4x because the billing clerk kept hanging up on me I called the alternate number on their voice mail system. "Voicemail at 1pm on a Monday" after being hung up on several times. The message when I called that # went to a SprintPCS voicemail box. Here I thought it was going to another office out of town? No, it's going to someone's cellphone. I left a voicemail in BOTH locations & NO ONE has had the nerve to call me back to attempt to resolve this matter at all. I looked them up on BBB.org & come to find out that they have already had a judgement against them before for "billing & collections issues". (Imagine that!) As of this writing they have a B rating & I suggested in both voicemails that they contact me in a timely manner regarding my issue or I'd be writing another dispute with the better business bureau. In addition I've contacted several agencies to file complaints against such dental practices & procedures that had occurred in the office at the time of my visit including the Ohio Dental Board & the Ohio Board of Health. I plan on keeping my word & giving them the opportunity to resolve this billing matter & apologize for their behavior in a timely manner. In BOTH voicemails I asked that Dr. Ekaterina Yankelevich return my call.

Granted in every review there must be some good. Right? Dr. Yankelevichs' "chair side" manner is awesome, so is Chucks'. They're very nice, sensitive people who genuinely care for how their patients are treated, while in their chair. Granted Dr. Yankelevich is a young Dr. & that really comes through. (In a GREAT way!) There's just a few shall we say, "rough edges" that need to be polished over. Hopefully it won't take another 13 years for her to realize that she desperately needs to hire a new billing clerk? (I say 13 years because as of this writing she graduated OSU Dental 6/2000) On her G+ page Dr. Yankelevich had posted, "We strive for excellence and to understand and respect the needs and desires of our patients and each other. We listen and we educate ourselves and our patients so that we can continue to grow together." So at least she's willing to admit she's not hitting these goals now, but is forward thinking enough to have goals for the future & I hope she gets there. But I don't think she will as long as she has a billing agent that's arrogant enough to attempt to "ban" a paying patient from her offices.

Meanwhile if you care about your health, your loved one's health or don't want to deal w/ a rude psycho billing agent, I would advise against seeing this Dr. at all costs. There's too many "good" Dentists in town that have hired nice, competent, professional billing agents with manners than to waste your time with a bad one. Ultimately they did agree to drop whatever charges they were attempting to charge me with after "supposedly" sending my account to collections.