I went to the Toluca Lake Dental group which consists of David Angulo, Jerry Albus and a few others, but I only had dealings with these two dentists. My initial reaction when I arrived was that it was very clean and had lots of modern equipment (more on this later). My appt was with Jerry Albus to get root canal work done, so after seeing him for a few minutes he leaves and comes back several times each time spending a few minutes with me then moving on to the next patient. I know this is common at Dentists these days but the annoying part is that he wasn't really even paying attention to my problem he was watching the Michael Jackson funeral procession on TV while he had tools in my mouth!! So after he does some drilling he says he's sending me over to a different dentist, Dr. Angulo, who is in the same office. I go to see Dr. Angulo who finishes up the work on my root canal, or rather it seemed his assistant did most of the work. I don't know if Dr. Albus wasn't competent enough to finish the work himself, if he was going to the breakroom to finish watching the Michael Jackson coverage, or if they are just running some sort of scam on my insurance company. I finally left the office with only a temporary crown and absolutely no intentions of returning. They told me I would have to come back and pay about $800 cash before they would order a crown for me because my insurance would only cover about $500 of it. $1300 for a crown is ridiculous!! Later I get 3 bills in the mail. One from Dr. Angulo, and two from Dr. Albus. Altogether totalling close to $2000 and all they did was drill out my tooth for a root canal, no post, no crown...just drilling and a temporary crown!! I was able to get the largest bill, which was over $1000, dropped becuase they were pre-billing me for the work they were going to be doing on my root canal (not including the $1300 for the crown) and I told them I wouldn't be returning - ever! So now I'm stuck with $500 in bills (I also paid several hundred dollars at the time of my visit) and I don't understand what it is for because I've never heard of a dentist charging over $700 to drill out a root. It seems like they may have figured out some loophole when dealing with the insurance companies that allows them to bill more by switching me around to a different dentist who has a seperate billing department. Now I understand how they can afford all of the modern technology they were sporting in the office. Unless you are wealthy and/or don't mind just throwing your money away for sub-par dentistry then STAY AWAY from this place!! STAY AWAY!!
About Hygienist: Friendly. I saw her more than the dentist.
out of 5 stars
