I will include contact info because one woman's frustration may be another man/woman's favorite new dentist. I happen to feel that if your front desk person is rude, I really don't want to deal with you beyond that because this is the person you chose to represent you. You may not feel that way.
(*) = African American
Who I (basically) like:
Gentle Dental
Dr. Andrew In
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| Dr. Andrew In |
215.764.5884
Why: Dr. In is a pretty straight forward guy, and is certainly not the jovial dentist I would recommend for children. However, he works on some Saturdays, and does his job well.
The front desk at Gentle Dental has been pretty good with one HUGE exception. There was once a time when I waited outside in the snow for over an hour beyond my appointment time before anyone would let me into the building. I banged on the door in the bitter cold for 45 minutes. The woman who let me in was completely unapologetic. I have not seen her since. Sadly, even with this terrible experience, this is the best dental office I have located.
Interesting tidbit: Dr. In is not African American (at least, I don't think he is), however he went to Howard University for dental school.
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Jefferson Oral Surgery
909 Walnut St., Philadelphia
215.955.6215
Why: I went in for oral surgery, counted to ten, and woke up without wisdom teeth. I never experienced pain, just the annoyance of having food fall into the vacant holes until they healed. I had some issues with the front desk--they told me that my health insurance would cover my extraction, claimed to have "verified" this information, but when I showed up the day of the extraction I was told that my health benefit would not cover it. I ended up rescheduling so that I could verify this information for myself.
Verdict not out:
Temple University Orthontics
3223 N. Broad St., 2nd Fl
Why: So far so good, but I'll fully review this one after my braces come off. One moment of frustration however was the two week period I spent in August trying to reach someone (anyone) in the office to schedule my second tightening. I ended up calling the dental clinic at Temple and having someone take a note to orthodontia asking them to call me. I did get a call and was told that nobody had answered the phone for two weeks because one of the secretaries was on maternity leave and her replacement was not very good. Umm. What?
Who to avoid:
Ogontz Dental Center
Dr. Dvorchak James, DMD
1614 E Upsal St., Philadelphia
215.392.4550
Why: I swear I am not someone who usually attracts rude treatment, but once again I experienced extremely rude treatment at the front desk. Twice I attempted to schedule appointments, and twice I was so aghast at the rude treatment that I just had to walk away. It's more of a general eye and neck roll as if you are inconveniencing them by asking a question than anything else. The dentist himself may be lovely. I will never know.
Further, there are no weekend hours and weekday hours are quite limited. This lucky dentist only works until 2 p.m. three days out of the week.
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Dr. Douglas A. Cranch, DMD
2630 W Cheltenham Ave., Philadelphia215.924.2436
Why: This dentist plead guilty to insurance fraud and theft. If you can't trust trust him with your insurance billing, I certainly would not trust him in my mouth. Might be hard to get an appointment with him anyhow since he may be locked up.
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Dr. Chinyelu Dibor, DMD*
5525 Wayne Ave., Philadephia
215.843.4900
Why: Again we encounter rude front desk staff, but this was actually even worse than the Ogontz Dental Center experience. (I really am a nice person. I promise.) I traveled on public transportation in the unexpected rain to visit Dr. Dibor on a recommendation. I wanted get a feel for the place and schedule an appointment. I got off of the bus too early, and walked the last few blocks. I arrived drenched, and told the woman at the desk that I wanted to schedule an appointment for a teeth cleaning.
Let me share the dialogue of the conversation:
Me: Hi! [friendly smile] I would like to schedule an appointment to have my teeth cleaned.
Rude Desk Chick: Well, can you afford it?
Me: [pauses] Um, I'm not quite sure what you mean. I'm pretty sure the procedure is covered by my insurance.
Suddenly UnRude Desk Chick: Ooooh, you have insurance!
Me: Oh, wow.
Side note: I really don't even know why I bothered to go check out the place because it was pretty unappealing, yet I still went ahead and tried to schedule an appointment.
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About Your Smile
Glenn A. Brown, DMD, JD*
6772 Market St., Upper Darby
610.734.0115
Why: Billing nightmare. I found Dr. Brown on my insurance provider's network to ensure that he was in-network, then went for X-rays and a cleaning. I arrived at the office and they verified that they were in-network. Well! Imagine my surprise when I am billed out-of-network due to the fact that the dentist had someone else in his office who did not take my insurance complete the work. Completely unacceptable.
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Temple University Dental School Clinic
3223 N Broad St, Philadelphia
I have been having a perfectly good experience with the orthodontic school (upstairs), but the dental school was a completely different story.
(1) First, it will be several months before you can schedule your first appointment. This is not their fault, there is simply a high demand for reasonably priced dental care.
(2) The wait time the day of your appointment is outrageous, even for a school, and each procedure happens at a glacial pace. Expect to wait an hour after your appointed time just to be seen.
(3) Of course, each student dentist will be different. However, it seems that the school in general would do well to spend more time teaching their students chair-side manner.
If you can afford to go to a regular dentist, definitely do. Otherwise, be prepared for a wait. I spent a lot of time at USC's school of dentistry in Los Angeles, and the experience at Temple is nowhere near comparable. I hear that Penn's dental school is good.
