Aspen Dental review: Pain in tooth where it was crowned for a bridge

Dec 2021 I turned 65, eligible for $1000 from UHC medicare insurance that I wanted to use towards having a bridge made for an extracted tooth (8-2020).

Wendy was able to get me in and the bridge made before the 12-31-21 deadline. This allowed me to plan on getting another bridge done on a missing crown on my lower right in 2022.

During the 2021 prep, when Dr. Kapilikisha was drilling I felt pain in my back tooth (#14?) even though it was numbed. I tried to stay still so it wouldn't cause him any problems. Afterwards I told Wendy it hurt, it hurt a lot when she put the temporary bridge on with the cold adhesive. Just the air hitting it was painful, now I have to drink with a straw because it hurts too much. When I went in for the permanent bridge I to told her I was concerned it was going to continue to hurt and I would be wasting my $ on a bridge. She put it on with the assurance it'd be fine and I was hoping/trusting it would settle down afterwards. Online research said it could take 6-8 weeks to settle down, so I tried to be patient. I called and told her it wasn't any better she asked it it was waking me up, another call she said there was some kind of decay that had caused it. They took numerous x-rays before they did any work and nothing was ever said about a problem with that tooth. One week prior to my appt with Aspen I went to another dentist for an exam, they also took numerous x-rays/pics with no mention of a root canal. Again I've never had any pain with that tooth. I went in to see Dr. K again. I told him it had never hurt before he drilled into it. He said he did not cause this. Since I cannot chew on my left side now I have to chew only on my right side I which already had an upper bridge (2011) I have a missing crown on my lower right that we'd planned on getting another bridge done this year with Aspen. But on 3-22 my upper 2011 bridge broke so I called Aspen again and talked with one of the girls who went and talked with Dr. K who said again he did not cause this pain on my left bridge. Now they want me to get a $1100 root canal for the tooth that he drilled into on top of the $2-3000 that's already been paid. They know I need 2 more bridges done now on my right side and they charge an average of $3000 for these bridges. Add the root canal and that's getting close to $10 grand. We're retired so this is a lot of $ to come up with. If I had no pain prior to the work and now I do-why would I go back to them and get more bridges done? The lady that does their dentures said a good pair could cost $10 grand. I don't want dentures.

The staff is very good but they are understaffed and overworked.

Now it's May and we've received a letter from UHC that they are no longer going to use Dr. Kapilikisha.