I switched to Esteban Bonilla because I didn’t trust my former dentist. Esteban has 20 reviews; ALL OF THEM ARE 5 STARS! Instead of seeing that as a red flag, I figured I found a great dentist and set up an appointment.
When I saw Bonilla, he told me I should have brought my x-rays. I told him my insurance would cover the fee so we can take more, but then he tells me his x-ray machine isn’t working. Hmm, a little weird I thought for a ‘professional dentist’, but whatever.
He leaves for a few minutes (probably to look over my insurance) and then returns to look at my teeth. He begins listing all this dental work I will need, which would accumulate to over $1000, and NONE of it would be covered by my insurance. I asked him why I have insurance if nothing is covered? He just said it wasn’t.
He told me I needed scaling and polishing but it’s not covered by my insurance. (Later, when I checked my coverage, it said this dental work was covered 100%. I even called my insurance group and they said ‘the dentist is misinformed’.)
Then he said I needed a few minor fillings, but I had to get gold fillings, which would cost me $80 a piece. I asked him why I had to get gold and not ceramic or silver. He replied these teeth have to have gold. Let me note here that communication is really difficult with Esteban since English is not his native language. I don’t want to sound ignorant (haven’t dealt with accents in my family my entire life), but it was so hard for Esteban to explain the dental work to me that he had to draw pictures.
Now here’s the big one. The reason I saw another dentist is because my former recommended a crown for a cavity when I thought a filling would suffice. I got a second opinion who sided with me, saying a crown was ‘overkill’. Dr. Esteban looked at the cavity and said he wouldn’t know what was needed until he ‘opened’ up my tooth. I asked him ‘wouldn’t an xray show what was going on inside of the tooth’. He said xrays don’t see inside of teeth, he needs to open it up to see what was going on inside. OPEN IT UP? Like it’s no big deal to chip away at my molar and then make a decision once it’s broken open. And I’m pretty sure that’s what xrays are used for. I think he was just trying to cover for his faulty equipment.
I would have stormed out of there then if I didn’t have to pay a damn office co-pay. He started tallying up all the expenses but I told him I’m not getting his work done. Honestly people, look at these reviews. They all have generic photos, were posted within days of each other, and have nothing negative to say. Doesn’t that seem fishy to you? Nothing less than 5 stars? If I could guess, I would say he or his staff posted these reviews knowing Internet reviews can make or break any business these days.
I should have seen that as a sign instead of wasting my time and money. I encourage those of you who aren’t as skeptical of dentists like I am to avoid this dentist or be prepared to pay a lot of money. I learned my lesson and am switching to PPO because with a DMO, you only find crooks and thieves.
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