Every once in a while you run into a person or a group of people that are completely dishonest to the point of not caring how it negatively effects other people, but not very often. It just really sucks when those people are ones that you have to be able to trust, because they’re doctors.

I recently had an absolutely ridiculous situation with a dental office. I needed a cleaning and a check-up and I ran across an ad for a Dr. Shad Morris here in Cedar City. I hadn’t gotten established with a good dentist here yet, so I decided to check him out. Everyone in his office seemed really nice, although I thought it was a little strange to get so many compliments. After doing the exam Dr. Morris informed me that I needed 10 crowns and two root canals. What!? It had only been about 8 months since my last exam and there is no way that I would need that much work done unless my last dentist was a complete idiot and missed things. I’m so gullible that I believed them thinking that maybe I had gotten poor dental care in the past. I scheduled an appointment and went in and had one root canal and another tooth prepped for a crown. I have never had so much pain after dental work in my life. My jaw was actually dislocated for 2 weeks afterwards. Dr. Morris’s office claimed that all the pain I had was because the temporaries were too high, but even after filing them down they still hurt. When I got my crowns put on the dental assistant looked at my gums around one of my temporaries and started apologizing. She said that she messed up the temporary and now my gums were badly damaged and they would take months to heal. Really?! Come on! To make a long story slightly shorter, It’s been 5 weeks now and I still can’t eat anything on that side of my mouth, because it hurts so badly.

In the meantime, my mom and brother moved here to Cedar City and right before they moved they both started having tooth pain. I recommended Dr. Morris, before I realized he was an idiot and they made appointments. My brother had a similar experience with them dislocating his jaw and now being unable to eat on that side of his mouth because of the pain. They also gave him all kinds of bizarre compliments too.

My mom’s experience unfortunately was so much worse. She needed a 4-tooth bridge replaced and they wouldn’t do any work until she paid 50% up front. She paid them and they put temporaries on. When she went back in for the bridge, they had her in the dental chair, threw the temporaries away and were just about to numb her up to put the bridge on when the receptionist came in. She informed my mom that there was something very wrong with the bridge and the teeth looked funny. She said it would have to be remade and besides, they couldn’t put it on until she paid the other 50%. She had already worked out monthly payments, but they suddenly wanted all the money up front. She asked to speak with Dr. Morris, but the receptionist said that he didn’t deal with the financial side of things. After a whole mess, my mom eventually just left the dental office with two exposed teeth, because they refused to put the bridge on.

Dr. Morris’s office called over and over throughout the day demanding the money for the bridge my mom never even received. Then, the next day they called again claiming that Dr. Morris looked at the bridge today and it looked fine, so my mom should come in and get it put on. How could it look funny one day and miraculously look fine the next? When my mom refused, because they had been so rude and changed their story, they got nasty. They have called probably close to ten times a day since and I have even had to talk to them telling them to back off. They actually owe my mom money, because they never put her bridge on and she paid for half of it. The stupidest part about it is that instead of having either the accountant or Dr. Morris call, they have had everyone else in the office call. The receptionists, the dental assistant, pretty much everyone but the janitor. How ridiculous is that!?

Whew. I just had to vent, because the whole situation has been such a nightmare. I actually left out half of the horrible things that have happened with them. They are the most insincere, dishonest, horrible medical office I’ve ever had to deal with. I can’t believe there are actually people out there who behave like that. Even though the situation was horrible, at least I found out that I can’t trust him before I got into all 10 crowns. I think I’m going to go get a second opinion.