41 yo female, and I had 6 implants placed in Oct. 2024 at Aspen Dental. The dentist who did everything was AMAZING, and he’s the only reason I went there for them. They were exposed in March 2025, and the fixed denture was placed in May 2025.
$20,000 for all of it.
Fast forward to January of this year, and it’s loose. The warranty states you have to receive an annual maintenance cleaning by then for the guarantee to remain valid, so I called and asked if we could get this done early, and if it could be checked out due to it wobbling.
Front desk told me I had a ‘balance’ and they’d offer me a discount. The thing is, the entire procedure was paid via the same exact credit card, and all receipts were available to remind them of this. NO insurance was supposed to be used, NONE. We made this very clear. I spoke to a billing specialist who told me it was an office write off, and I was not responsible. I was still unable to get an appointment scheduled, however, because every time I called…this balance kept coming up. The front desk would block me from making an appointment every time.
In late March, it popped out of my mouth entirely. I frantically began calling the office again, and got the same result. I went there, same result. I called corporate billing and they told me it was an ‘erroneous accounting software glitch’ that would be rectified quickly. Not so. I guess they just never fixed it or it never cleared, because I couldn’t get an appointment to save my life. In July, I located the dentist who did everything for me (he had moved to his own practice) and he was able to call the owner of the Aspen, and then the practice manager called and had me go in to have it reseated.
The dentist who reseated it left the old O-rings in it that were over a year old, and told me they were reusable. It popped out again five weeks later at the end of August.
Rinse, repeat…I called for an appointment, I had another magical balance that someone pulled out of thin air, and the front desk just started to click me to voicemail mid-call and ignore me. I found an old appointment survey link in my text messages, so I wrote a Google review about all of this. The practice manager called the next day.
She told me that the owner said he’d forgive my balance, one that I do not legitimately owe, in exchange for my deleting my bad review so I don’t scare other patients. In order to have it reseated, they are requiring the maintenance cleaning. They offered to ‘discount’ this for me by forgiving the O Ring cost, so they will only charge me $250 for the cleaning and having it put back in.
That said, I’m wondering if anywhere else in the Raleigh, NC area can work on this type of fixed arch? I called a few places local to me, and they mentioned they don’t use the locator fixed system that Aspen uses. I am absolutely desperate to find literally anywhere else that can help me, because I do NOT trust Aspen AT ALL.
Out of the seventeen months since I had the original arch placed, it has been entirely out of my mouth, implants and all just exposed, for six months altogether. They blocked me for months making an emergency appointment, constantly produce fake balances, and then leave warped, old retention rings in when they are single use parts only. Then they try to extort me into deleting my review in exchange for forgiving some balance that’s not even legitimate.
I just want my teeth back in, and I just want to form a long-term, trusted relationship with whomever can do it. My husband is so beyond sick, needs a kidney transplant, and I’m so exhausted with life, our kids, and stress. Dealing with this corporate evil has absolutely drained the rest of dignity I had left. I just want to find someone I can rely on. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.
