SmileBurst Dentistry

Awful! Had to go here because of my HMO. Cleaning is supposed to be free with my dental plan but they tried to upsell me on a «deep cleaning» for hundreds of dollars. After refusing, I received the shoddiest «cleaning» ever. No flossing, no scraping, no rinse, no flouride. Just a 5 minute polish.
I will go elsewhere and pay out of pocket for cleaning even though I have coverage for cleaning. Shame.

VERY UNPROFESSIONAL!!! BEWARE!!! Do not come to this place. They book appointments on days they are closed. My mom was outside waiting with 4 other clients waiting for their appointments. When you have an emergency and call the Emergency Number they try and blow you off and you have to argue and scream and threaten to call the Board of Dentistry with them to get their lazy butts in the office them you finally get someone to come in and you find out that your in pain and was still bleeding because someone did not do their job right in the first place and should of removed some gunk that was stuck in your gum that was supposed to be cleaned out by the staff and this was from the dentist who finally came in and seen my mother late at night. This is what the dentist told my mother and was very upset that staff did not do what they were suppose to. She was in so much pain.
Terrible, Terrible place. They seem like a rinky dink type of office. The people that work their are not very friendly and they do not know what the other is doing. Seems very chaotic. I finally had to pay a large amount of money for my mother but all they gave me was a debit card reciept and a hand written receipt from a book I could of bought at the .99 cent store. I could not even get an itemized receipt for what I paid for because «Their systems were down» and it has been that way for at least a week. How can they have systems down and do their job. I bet its not down to bill my insurance!
would give them a minus 5 if I could!!!
I will be putting in a complaint with the Board of Dentistry and so should anyone else who has written a bad review. This place should be closed down.

Super rude I was trying to schedule two appts wit my ppo and the receptionist he hung up on me. well they lost production on two pt. Never go here unless yu want to be treated wit disrespect. Seriously

I had the same experience as did the others I fell for the deep cleaning thing once 6 months later they tried the same thing I told them I just had it done they tried to convince me otherwise I refused they also got me for my 2 older kids I paid it because I felt they could use it amazing they told me my youngest son was fine nothing needed I was about to make an appointment today till I read these very helpful reviews and found another dental office

I wouldnt even give it a one star i went here to get my fillings done but My wisdom tooth was coming in on oneside so i explained to them they cant do one side because it was swollen and in pain so they told me its fine and gave me all these shots in my mouth to tell me they cant work on me cause my mouth was swollen the verything i told them I hate this place people are rude dentist didnt make me feel comfortable or anything would never go back

I made my first visit to this office yesterday. It is close to my work and thought it would be convenient. The office itself is pretty run down but I thought I would go ahead and not judge. The receptionist was pleasant enough and I had had to reschedule once and he had been polite and professional about it. The hygienist came to get me with barely a greeting. She sat me down in a chair for x-​rays and there was nowhere except the sketchy looking floor to put my purse. So I held my bag for the whole appointment. Then I had a chance to look around. It looked like it had been painted recently but the rest was horrid. All the counters were chipped and run down, there were exposed wires and pipes to equipment. There was dust and many surfaces and the ceiling appeared dirty and/​or broken.
So Miss Personality came back and did my x-​rays and sent me to an exam room where I waited and waited. Meanwhile the whole time there was something that sounded like a really loud compressor running. It was nerve wracking. Finally the dentist came. She is a very polite lady and seemed friendly enough. She starts examining me and tells the hygienist that she needs more x-​rays, apparently she didn’t get all of the right ones. So then she tries to move the x-​ray arm in that room into place. She’s wrestling with this thing over my head. Finally she says «you need to get up». Not «I’m so sorry, having difficulty» or «would you mind getting up?». So I get up and she proceeds to try and push and shove the chair around. Apparently it had been moved for a patient in a wheel chair and no one had moved it back. Finally she gives up and says «Go back to the x-​ray room». So I did. Then the real fun began. She tried and tried and was unable to get some of the images the dentist had ordered. Meanwhile my mouth is getting sore from just having it open and pushed around. She has me sticking my own finger in my mouth and still can’t get the shots she needed. Finally the dentist told her which one was most important, which she had managed to get, and told her to forget the rest. The real kicker is instaed of the hygienist telling me «I’m so sorry this is taking so long» or something, she says «Your mouth is too small. You have a mouth like a 7 year old!» WTF? I’m 55 years old, been going to the dentist since I was 5. No one has ever mentioned my mouth is too small to take x-​rays correctly.
So then she moves me back to the exam room and the dentist finished her exam. Even though she seemed really nice, I took a good look at her. She was wearing old and stained scrubs. Though they looked clean, it was truly not a professional appearance.
I don’t think I was upsold and the estimate for the work I needed done seemed reasonable. But for certain I won’t be having it done there. My appointment was at 4:30, I arrived at 4:15. I left at almost 6:00 and all I got was an exam and x-​rays. Save yourself some grief and DO NOT go here!

I went to Smileburst in Lemon Grove for two reasons, because I was limited by my HMO and because they are near my home.
I’ve never liked going to them. Among other things, their cleanliness always seemed sketchy to me.
There were several reasons I became wary, among them was that they were constantly trying to get upsell me to have more work done than was covered by my insurance’. I fell for it the first couple of times and paid out of my own pocket. Now I’m angry because my husband now has dentures for his front teeth when in my opinion, he always had perfectly straight, healthy looking front teeth. It made me wonder if that procedure was really necessary.
Another time I went in to get a check up and the technician who took the x-​rays couldn’t get it right. She took about 15 or so x-​rays and finally someone else had to come in and do them for her. About six months later, I went in and the exact same thing happened. That was it for me. I don’t want someone to learn how to take x-​rays on my body. I decided to change to another dentist, but got lazy and didn’t get around to it. I still didn’t go back to Smileburst though. I was and am through with them!
On New years eve, I cracked a tooth. I called Smileburst even though I had sworn to myself that I would never return, and at the same time mentally kicked myself for dragging my feet on finding another dentist.
I hated calling them but financially I didn’t have a choice.
A man answered the phone. He told me they were not open and he was just there to confirm appts for the week. I told him I had just cracked a tooth and needed to see an emergency dentist.
He said that since they were closed there was nothing he could do and they also didn’t have any open appts for the rest of the week either.
EXCUSE ME?
I need to make a future appt for an emergency? And… they have no appts available all this week for AN EMERGENCY?
Our conversation started to get a little bit heated right about then. I told him that they must have an emergency dentist to contact. They’re part of an HMO and I’m pretty sure they’re required to have an emergency dentist on call.
I made several calls back to him while in between trying to find another dentist to accommodate me.
We went back and forth and he did finally offer to call his manager, but in a way that said it wasn’t something he really wanted to do, and my suspicion was that he would just say he tried but wasn’t able to get in touch with her. But that was just my gut feeling.
I made a few calls to other dentists and finally realized it was going to be too expensive to go to someone else, something I can’t afford, so I called Smileburst back, and asked him to go ahead and contact his manager to see about an emergency dentist, a request that clearly annoyed him. Even though it had been his idea, I think he was annoyed because I had called him back several times and by this time I was more than annoyed too.
I asked him if he had my phone number so he could call me back, (my phone number does not show up on caller I. D) and in the middle of my sentence, HE HUNG UP ON ME!
I called back immediately, but this time someone else answered. The new guy was polite and said he would find a dentist for me and call me back. My gut feeling was that he was just going to blow me off. Sure enough, I never heard back from him again either. I called back a while later and no one answered the phone.
I called again later on the off chance they were still there but this time I got a recording, (what a surprise huh?)and at the end of the recording there was a number to contact for an emergency. What a relief! I immediately called the number and got a recording that I should leave a message and a phone number and they would call me back. The problem was that the recording was at the Smileburst office and it was CLOSED! What the heck? What good does that do me? No one was there to answer the recording!
I left a message anyway, hoping I was wrong and someone would call back soon. That was three days ago, I still haven’t heard back from them.
I just had to suffer through Monday, Tuesday and part of Wednesday. I borrowed money from my friend and found another dentist. I’ll be eating Ramen for the next few months but at least my problem is taken care of.
I’ve since learned that HMO dentists get paid a set amount each month from the HMO whether or not you use their services.
I’m changing dentists on my HMO plan as of today! Smileburst will never get another cent on my behalf for sure!
Update: I wrote this review the day after New Years day. I didn’t post it to Unilocal at that time because I was so angry that I knew I couldn’t write a review that wasn’t just an angry rant. Today I have since edited the review, removed all of the colorful language and references to body parts. By the way, it has been almost three weeks since I left the message on their emergency call answering machine and I STILL have not heard back from them. No thanks!!!

Worst experience ever!!!
I had the same experince as Sue. S. the staff was friendly to me But the wait once they took me back was ridiculous i went in @ 9:15am and didn“t leave until 12:00pm the doctor had me waiting forever, on top of that they didn’t even want to set up for my cleaning until i had payed they sent out someone to show me and try to explain wat i «had to pay» they charged me alot of money and the doctor was rushing so much he cut my lip really bad! and water from the cleaning was all over my face. The experience was horrible definitley wont go back and i am trying to get my money back b/​c they charged me $ and didn’t even bill my insaurance.

Not a good experience… Dirty office, spider in the corner, not painted! Dentist was so nice but had student cleaning teeth, didn’t even tell me it was student! messy job! won’t be coming back

The worst service/​experience I ever had…
The charged me a lot of money to do deep cleaning.
They tried to force my bf to do deep cleaning even though his teeth are «healthy». They refused the «simple teeth-​cleaning» unless he does the deep cleaning…
The location is good, inside a mall. but the clinic was very old. The front desk keeps asking your money, showing what you «need» to pay
Doctors don’t say a lot because the staff will explain the situation for you.
WILL NOT GO BACK or RECOMMEND TO ANYONE.