1 /5 Brianda Garcia: I visited this office as a referral from my primary dentist to have my wisdom teeth extracted. Unfortunately, my experience fell short in several areas, including disorganization among the office staff and a noticeable lack of professionalism.
I arrived about five minutes early to my appointment to allow time for paperwork, which I completed promptly. However, I ended up waiting in the lobby for roughly 1 hour and 30 minutes before being called back. When I was finally taken to the exam room, Dr. Cruz saw me for only 2-3 minutes. Afterward, the assistant stayed to go over the Dos and Donts before my extraction appointment. Unfortunately, she seemed bothered and annoyed when I asked questions, which made me feel uncomfortable.
After this brief consultation, I returned to the lobby to wait for pricing information and to finalize my appointment. I ended up waiting for an additional two hours. When my last name was finally called, I verified my full name with the staff member before proceeding to sign documents. To my surprise, I noticed that the social security number and name on the document did not match mine. I immediately informed the staff, but no apology was offered for this significant error.
I continued waiting in the lobby for another 30 minutes before approaching the employee behind the sliding window to ask if there was an estimated time for when I would be seen. Her response was, You’re still here? Let me check. Eventually, I was told by the same employee (red hair) to leave the office and that they would call me once they were ready. I spent a total of four hours waiting in the office.
I left the office, and about 20 minutes later, I received a call from a staff member at Dr. Cruz’s office. She informed me that they were having issues verifying the credentials of my primary doctor and asked me to wait a week for the issue to be resolved. A week later, I called Dr. Cruz’s office to get an update on the situation. However, the call was disconnected. When I immediately called back and explained that the call had been disconnected, the employee did not apologize and continued the conversation as if nothing had happened. She then informed me that they were now having issues verifying information with my insurance company and advised me to wait an additional two weeks.
After two weeks, I decided to contact my insurance company directly to find out what the issue was. To my surprise, they were confused and informed me that there was no open case for me. The representative from my insurance company offered to call Dr. Cruz’s office directly to resolve the issue. When he called, the staff at Dr. Cruz’s office disconnected the call. He called again, and after 5-10 minutes, the issue was suddenly resolved. My insurance company representative informed me that Dr. Cruz’s staff stated they would call me within an hour. However, I never received that call.
The next day, I decided to follow up and called Dr. Cruz’s office myself. I spoke with a staff member named Brenda, discussed the overall price for the tooth extraction, and finally finalized my appointment date.
A day before my appointment, I called Dr. Cruz’s office to verify the instructions, including the dos and donts. The employee who answered, the same one who had booked my appointment, seemed confused and didnt seem to know what appointment I was referring to. She then transferred me to another employee, and this is when I discovered that Dr. Cruz’s staff had never booked my appointment. There was no empathy or apology offered by the employee.
This situation was especially frustrating because I was required to bring someone with me to the appointment since I would be under anesthesia and unable to drive myself. The person I had arranged to take with me had already requested the day off from work in advance, making this oversight a significant inconvenience.
Overall, the staff showed a clear lack of professionalism and empathy. They were very disorganized and don’t seem to be the right fit for this type of work.
