Fernan Kalaw

Review of Old Oakland Dental

Our experience with Total Health Dental Care as ne...

Our experience with Total Health Dental Care as new patients had been just unacceptable. Here's why:

I. "All in One Roof Dental Health Claim"

Right from the start, we have to go to multiple clinics:

- Welcome Center for X-rays, Virtual Dental Evaluation
- Old Oakland for Cleaning/Crown/Filling
- Emeryville for Root Canal

II. "Not Covid-19 Ready "

-Unnecessary Multiple Exposures from 3 different clinics; If you have an underlying conditions, then good luck;

-Emeryville patient exam rooms are too close to each other;

-Old Oakland (Have to Use Hands to Pull Doors -Main Building Door & Bathroom Doors)

-Old Oakland front desk tends to get busy and packed. No social distancing observation;

III. Communication:

-Failure of communication amongst the 3 offices in terms of treatment plan, diagnosis, appointments and billing;

-Multiple unnecessary text/SMS messages for appointments, and appointments confirmation.
( i.e. Received Over 20 texts in 2 weeks; Text appointment confirmation does not even have the date and time and location of the appointments);

-These issues were brought up at the Welcome Center, Emeryville and Oakland and all they said is that it will be brought up to the management team and that we will get a call from the Regional Manager Melissa but never did. She only called us after we have already complained directly to Dr. Pacheco about what's been happening.

-Called to opt out of Phone and Text and still got Phone Reminder as of 09.28 for 09.29 appointment;

IV. Scheduling Issues:

-We were told later that Root Canal+Crown+Filling could have been scheduled at the same day and same location; Again, this was one of those communication issues;

-Call Center team (Alexis) and Front Desk (Angelique) insisted on their personal opinions on what treatment you should be doing and coming for even though it was different from what Dr. Pacheco has advised us what to do.

V. Billing

-Incorrectly charged my spouse with treatment (didn't need a filling yet, the bill has filling charge)

"It's up to you if you want to pay tomorrow but you won't get the 5% prepayment discount per Alyssa/Alexis?" Our reason for the call was to get the 5% discount to begin with.

Old Oakland Front Desk told us that my spouse maxed out of insurance for a crown when our insurance has $1500 annual benefits and that Phase 1 of treatment has used $600+ Phase 2 has used $500. We should have another $400 since there's no dental treatments done prior to these;

Should have been better explained as "We cannot apply remaining benefits until after Metlife processed your Phase 1 and Phase 2 treatments first. You can prepay now and we will credit you after ..."

Between my spouse and I we paid close to $8K in less than 3 weeks.

Total Health is pricey.

VI. Holistic?

Apart from the Dr. H & Co. mouthwash, THD seems just like any other dental offices. The promised of whole person practice isn t really true and misleading.

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The only Pros hence the 2 stars:

Dr. Pacheco is nice and a good dentist;

Same Day Crown is amazing;

Hygienist Gladys of Old Oakland is super friendly And thorough with cleaning.

Dr. Amanda of Emeryville is good.