Overcharged by dentist - can anyone help?

neece56

Thank you all for your comments. After verbally complaining and getting nowhere, I emailed a formal complaint to the practice manager. Within 48 hours I have received a phone call from the Manager apologising for the “misunderstanding”. I will be refunded the difference between the advertised figure and the amount I paid. (Well done me). She advised me that the website has been updated (it hasn’t) and that I was given a treatment plan after my treatment and not before. How many people does this happen to without them knowing that they can complain? 

Toothsmith

Practices should have their complaints policy reasonably clearly somewhere in the practice, within any practice leaflet, and even on the website. 

But who really reads stuff on the walls of dental waiting rooms? 

I would argue that in this day and age most people would know that if something untoward happened in any retail/ service/ professional relationship, then there will be some way to complain about it. You happened to get a pointer towards the right way to go about it in a dental situation from asking on here - but if that hadn't happened, I'm sure it wouldn't have been that long before it would occur to you to drop them an email, or a letter. That's all it would have taken to formally initiate their complaints procedure. If they were a little more on the ball, they would have initiated it from the phone calls. 

Undervalued

Toothsmith said:

Practices should have their complaints policy reasonably clearly somewhere in the practice, within any practice leaflet, and even on the website. 

But who really reads stuff on the walls of dental waiting rooms? 

I would argue that in this day and age most people would know that if something untoward happened in any retail/ service/ professional relationship, then there will be some way to complain about it. You happened to get a pointer towards the right way to go about it in a dental situation from asking on here - but if that hadn't happened, I'm sure it wouldn't have been that long before it would occur to you to drop them an email, or a letter. That's all it would have taken to formally initiate their complaints procedure. If they were a little more on the ball, they would have initiated it from the phone calls. 

The problem with a "complaints policy" is that they tend to be drafted by the very organisation you are complaining about! Whilst no policy can override your statutory rights some at least do their very best to put as many obstacles in the way as possible!

Some companies / organisations will try and insist that you have agreed to follow their policy as a condition of using their (deficient / incompetent / dishonest) service in the first place!

It is not totally clear here whether this dentist was trying to "pull a fast one" in the hope that the patient either wouldn't notice or at least wouldn't dare make a fuss. Certainly the practice manager (what a grand title!),. seems to have acted like the customer relationship department of a large firm and trotted out phrases like "misunderstanding" whilst trying to argue that black is white regarding the website and treatment plan. In other words we'll will get away with it most of the time and make the odd refund, without admission of fault, when we encounter a "difficult" patient!

It would serve them right if the OP or some other patient who has been treated the same way were to take a complaint all the way the the GDC. Sadly most won't because understandably they have other things to do.

Toothsmith

It is tightly stipulated what should be in a complaints policy UV, and the time intervals for responses, and the list of places a patient can then escalate a complaint to, if not happy by the practice response. 

When the CQC inspect a dental practice, the complaint policy is high up amongst the things they check, as well as the complaints log. (Complaints received, timeline of responses & outcome) 

Toothsmith

Here's the CQC page on complaining about a medical service (Medics dentists & Eyecare)

https://www.cqc.org.uk/contact-us/how-complain/complain-about-gp-dentist-or-eye-care

How to complain
In the first instance, you should contact the service provider.
All health and social care service providers must have a complaints procedure that you can ask to see. This will tell you how to make a complaint.

Undervalued

Toothsmith said:

Here's the CQC page on complaining about a medical service (Medics dentists & Eyecare)

https://www.cqc.org.uk/contact-us/how-complain/complain-about-gp-dentist-or-eye-care

How to complain
In the first instance, you should contact the service provider.
All health and social care service providers must have a complaints procedure that you can ask to see. This will tell you how to make a complaint.

In a way this matter now fall between two stools. The OP is getting a partial refund and is now only having to pay the amount they originally expected. They have also indicated that they were increasingly unhappy with this dentist and are unlikely to use them again. So it would be very understandable for them to feel they have plenty of other things to deal with and simply move on.

I have to say the "practice manager's" response would have annoyed me more than the original issue! At best, having incorrect fee information on their website is incompetent. At worst it is dishonest. A decent response would have been "Our sincere apologies. thank you for pointing out the error on our website and for our failure to provide you with a detailed costing before carrying out the treatment". Given the inconvenience I feel the refund should have been greater than the amount in dispute.

However, getting anything useful done about it is another matter. Yes, certainly I think they should report the matter to the CQC as it may possibly reduce the chances of it happening again to other patients. Without evidence of dishonest intent (if there was any) it is unlikely the GDC will be interested.