SmileCare Family Dentistry

Absolutely the worst place I’ve ever been to. They forced me to get numbing shots just for a normal teeth cleaning. I’ve never had a cavity nor ever had any issues with pain for a cleaning.
I was young and didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. They took me to an office and had me sign papers without asking. It’s a huge scam, seriously. They just wanted my insurance to pay them for any service they could.
They even botched the shot and hit a nerve in my cheek that made my mouth numb for hours. It was extra swollen and I was drooling non-​stop for most of the rest of the day. All that just for a normal cleaning. Thinking about it now makes me furious.
I could go on about the hours of delay they made me wait before realizing they booked me for the wrong day, the filthy office, the throng of other upset customers, and the fact that they were unwilling to give my new dentist my x-​rays, but you can just read everyone else’s reviews that already talk about the same issues.

Wrote an objective review of this place couple of yrs ago with pictures but they asked Unilocal!to take it down. I’m again posting a new picture with the same old complain… dingy, downright dirty carpets. For a hygienic clinic, it is very ironic. In fairness, the staff are generally nice but reading the reviews and experiences from other patients, I can just shake my head wondering why my family still uses this dental facility. Perhaps it’s time to look for a better alternative. They could take reviews and comments as a hint on how to make their place better but what do they do… they ask Unilocal!to remove all these comments and reviews. Problem is, if they keep on asking Unilocal!in removing these negative reviews, there will be nothing left in the reviews because all are just 1 star. SMH

Smilecare Ortho is the WORST. Not only are they only open ONCE A WEEK (so they are always extremely booked), but they can’t even spare a few minutes for old patients. I came in because my retainer is loose. The receptionist told me I would have to wait at least half an hour… and it wasn’t even gaurenteed that they could see me. If my teeth move, I shouldn’t have to pay because of the company is too cheap to open up more available days for their patients!!!
The doctor is nice though so it is truly a shame how hard Smilecare makes it for their patients.

Very rude, can’t get services for about 5 minutes. Charge extremely over for any services. They should really hire another person with better attitude as the receptionist, not the guy who works now. Very rude. Everyone has an attitude. Customer service needs to be upgraded.

My love for Smile care has came to an end (loyal patient since 2005) Sadly because I loved their front desk, their Doctor are amazingly kind and helpful! So helpful that they will pry every penny out of you. I am a college student that had to put all of her money she saved on her car towards smile care bills. Done so many other procedures when I originally came in for just my wisdom teeth to be removed – still is not removed. It was my fault, I was too gullible and kept saying yes to everything service they threw at me. Yes I happen to be one of those victims that were billed months later with no explanation. OH they «accidentally» charged me for procedures that I have not done. I called for x Rays to be emailed and the front desk Beatrice was just very unprofessional .I was awaiting on my email after we had hung up the first time she stated It would be emailed. I am waiting yet still no email. Then when I call back 15 min later she asked if I needed it today, then stating she was assisting patients when I called? Unacceptable. I will no longer be a returning patient.

So… I sat for an hour waiting. Keep in mind I had an appointment. Finally I got x-​Rays. Now I have been sitting 15 minutes waiting to see a doctor. So besides the bad service … I want to share some photos I took. First notice the dirt. I don’t think this place has been cleaned in months maybe years. Second look at the poster on the wall. Yep that crappy poster is on the wall with staples. Very classy. First and last visit not coming back

The worst experience ever. My mother recommended me to have my teeth cleaned for the sake of my health. Since I pay a premium price for my health benefits, I figured I might as well just do it. Upsold me for a deep cleaning and some other things that weren’t necessary. I had a second opinion from a friend that is in the industry. I totally got hustled. Last time coming here, SmileCare is a corporate company. Dental Hygienist gets a low hourly pay, so they thrive on their commission checks. I have a friend who makes over 6 figures by selling unnecessary products (also is a Dental Hygienist).

This dental practice is running a scam on its patients. Much like going to get your car serviced, the average person doesn’t know that much about the health of their teeth. We put our trust in dental professionals to be HONEST with us about what procedures we need. However SmileCare apparently doesn’t believe in honesty. I was told that I needed root scaling due to the beginning of periodontal disease. I’ve never had a cavity in my life and have always been praised on my dental health however I had been living overseas for 3 years and hadn’t had good dental check-​ups so I thought perhaps my teeth had really declined. They showed me what my portion of the costs would be (after insurance paid). They performed the root scaling but then the other shoe dropped. What they neglected to inform me of is that my insurance would only pay if there was EVIDENCE of periodontal disease. I have gone back and forth with the insurance company and received the final notice today. After reviewing my chart, my insurance company found ZERO evidence of periodontal disease. Basically SmileCare lied and performed a procedure that cost me several hundred dollars. I plan on reporting this to the Dental Board of California. I believe SmileCare should be investigated and penalized (and hopefully shut down) for their fraudulent behavior.

Do not go to this place!!! They are seriously scammers. I went to have my wisdom teeth removed in July of 2011 and they said my insurance would cover everything. Fast forward three years later and I’m getting letters from collections agencies saying I owe Money to these scammers. I called smile care about 10 times before I could finally talk to a manager who said she would fix everything. It’s been awhile since I’ve talked to them but I checked my credit score recently and it says I still owe smile care money… This exact thing happened to my sister. These people are liars who just want to steal your money. I hope this place goes out of business soon!!!

Of I could give no stars I would. Don’t ever come here. The place is filthy and they try to up-​sell you. Ridiculous. They make excuses why. I got a second opinion and none of what they said I needed was necessary.
I tried to get a copy of my X-​rays and they are so unprofessional and disorganized. They didn’t have the film to copy it on. She said it would be done the next day and I went and it wants. she said that she tried calling me but my phone number was wrong. Lies! Your dental office has called me before. She was just lazy and didn’t get the film like she was supposed to. Now it’s gonna take a week to possibly get my records!
Screw you!

I do not recommend this place. I went in because I had a cavity. 3 hours later, I only got my teeth clean!
They basically didn’t provide any options and recommended expensive onlay work for the cavity. I didn’t want to go the expensive route that jacked up my natural tooth so I just asked for my teeth to be cleaned. The quote for the teeth cleaning kept on changing. At first the teeth cleaning was quoted $ 89, but when I rejected all the expensive dental work done and just wanted my teeth cleaned, it went down to $ 69. Then I called them out on why the price changed from $ 89 to $ 69, they were like, «oh, they must have forgotten to add the medicine used during the cleaning», so it went back up… this time to $ 85. Which still wasn’t the same number as the original quote. I’m writing off memory so please understand for not having accurate numbers, all I remember is the price kept on changing.
It’s like a used car salesman trying to sell you dental work. If you go here, watch out, because I think it’s more about the money here.
TL;DR — Took forever, expensive, and the quote kept changing.

SmileCare ruined my credit. The actual dentists did Ok work. My new dentist says they made mistakes, In my opinion the dental work is average. I was fine with that. My main gripe is their billing practices.
It seems they bill from the corporate office and not from the dental office. I paid for my familities dental work in full but kept getting billed in different amounts. The billing is very confusing and a different amount each time.
They sent me to collections. Now I have bad credit.
Needless to say my family has found a new dentist that we are very happy with. I will never go back to Smile Care. I am still dealing with my ruined credit because of them.

This place is a joke. I went there because it is in my insurance network. Seriously, they just want your money and don’t care about your teeth. I had my root canal there and the problem didn’t go away.
Equipment are incredibly out-​of-​date. Who still use film X-​ray these days? Every profession I met tells me all X-​ray should be digital now.
I would gladly give negative stars if I can. This place is total waste of time and money. Too bad this is how Quality Health Care of America, you have to pay more than basic to find someone who really care about your health. God Bless America.

My mom used to go there, and she would always have issues with how her payments were not paid EVEN THOUGH they have been paid. They’ll never work with your insurance. You will find a lot of sources claiming that Smilecare is a scam.
This is not SmileCare, caring for your smile. This is SmileCare, bitches we want your money.

I held off writing a review as long as possible, giving SmileCare ample time to remedy my issues. But seeing how 7 months have passed and I’m still waiting, I decided to go ahead and contribute my 2 cents.
I had a cavity. They recommended an inlay to save the tooth. I asked what alternative options there were since it’d cost me over $ 900. They told me they could go with a crown for half the cost but pushed me to get the inlay. They even offered a slight discount to make it more enticing. I caved and got the inlay. Got fitted and came back a few weeks later for the placement. After a few weeks, the pain hadn’t gone away and was getting worse. Went back in. They told me the inlay didn’t fit. They refitted me and sent me on my way. That weekend, I was in such intense pain, I checked into Urgent Care after I couldn’t get ahold of anybody at the office. I called again on Monday and they rushed me in. They recommended a root canal at this point and said I’d need a crown. I had to pay for the root canal and crown on the spot. So I paid for an inlay and a crown.
Now I’m getting invoiced for an additional $ 500 (still don’t have clarity on what?) and I have gotten no credit for the inlay that I paid for but never received. I’ve called numerous times and this has not been resolved. If this doesn’t get resolved soon, I’m sure this will hit my credit report.
DO NOT COME HERE!

In addition to taco shops and sushi restaurants, there appears to be a dentist on every corner in San Diego.
As with taco shops and sushi restaurants, some dentists are definitely better than others, and some need to be avoided like the plague…
IF YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR TEETH, DO NOT GO HERE.
First, I hope you have absolutely nothing else to do the day you make your appointment. You will wait, for hours. No joke. I do not understand why they even bother to give you an appointment time. It is meaningless. You are going to wait in the waiting room and watch hours of Court TV along with dozens of others.
Second, the dentists here are quacks. I chipped a front tooth. Needed it filled. The female dentist that worked on me screwed it up so badly, the filling fell off hours afterwards. This meant another nightmare wait the next day to have it repaired. Basically, I took two days off of work to get one friggin’ filling.
So, the next day, it was the same female dentist, and she botched the filling again. The filling was uneven, not polished, and stuck out so badly I could not bite down anymore. The absolute cherry on top was that they wanted me to pay for the second visit. Yeah! They wanted me to pay for them to repair their screw-​up, which they screwed up for a second time. I told them to go pound sand and I went to a dentist who did not get his degree online to properly fix my tooth.
BE WARNED!!!

I went here a couple of years ago. Usually I trust my dentist, so during my regular cleaning they recommended I do all this stuff bc it was necessary. Like a trusting idiot, I agreed. All the waits were long, one over an hour, the procedures were rushed and short. They were so dumb to even inject me with Novocaine on the wrong side and just apologized. The whole thing was rushed, painful and very unprofessional.
My biggest complaint though is not that, but with my exp. with Dr. Abdul Jabbar. Her english is not so great, but you’d figure she’d know the difference of a Lumineer vs. Veneer. I agreed to Lumineers and instead she gave me Veneers (do your research of the differences). In short– the procedure was a joke with her assistant so lost and it looked bulky and horrible. Bulky is an attribute of a veneer, I was shocked & pissed when I got tons of 2^nd opinions that confirmed this.
When I complained she blamed me! I fought hard with them, and the manager is an incompetent fool. Even with me in tears, they didn’t give a crap. They will gang up on you & only defend themselves w/​o even bother looking at my proven evidence. The stupid manager even used foul language and could not even construct a knowledgeable sentence. In the end, I tried hard to fight with SmileCare for misrepresentation, customer service, etc… and you know how difficult it is to get resolution through them. Useless.
In the end I paid tons of $ to attempt to fix my Veneers. This is the worst place, DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME OR $…even if u have the worst insurance. You will pay for it in the end. They are extremely unprofessional, not skilled at all and will lie straight to your face. The patient is not their priority but to get you in and out & charge you for anything they can. They simply do not care! Worst experience ever! I hope this post saves someone from the stress and waste of time & $ I went through. btw: all I’m saying is true & I have all the paperwork, tapes & 2^nd opinions to prove it… still it is «pending» with SmileCare corporate… ridiculous.

This place hella pisses me off. I agree with ALL of the reviews about this place because they’re all TRUE. They’re never on time even when you’re there on your scheduled appointment time. I can never understand the Asian dentist lady and yes they will try to milk you for every freakin penny you got.
I recently went in for a check up, they told me I needed some work done. okay fine do what you gotta do, they said it was going to cost like $ 200 something, ugh I guess fine whatevers. lets get it over with and yeah. A month or so later I get a bill for over $ 400. What the Eff!!! Some BS about my dental insurance not covering the work done on me, what the freak. Why didn’t effin SmileCare inform me that my insurance wouldn’t cover it. So now I’m in the middle of all this damn crap, calling SmileCare, calling my insurance, back and forth, giving me the runaround. Giving them my number to call me back, and of course no call back. I seriously just want to sue this freakin place.

I agree with all these other reviews. I’ve been going to the same dentist for my entire life, but recently moved to San Diego so had to find a new one. I tried SmileCare, who immediately told me that I needed braces and that the whole structure of my mouth would someday be compromised if I didn’t get them. For my whole life my dentist has told me that I don’t need braces and that they would be purely for cosmetic purposes if I did get them, but here these guys are trying to gouge me for money my first time coming in.
I came back 6 months later, after turning down the braces, and magically my insurance didn’t cover fluoride this time, even though they gave that to me for free the last time. I think I perhaps was just lucky the first time and they made a mistake in checking my insurance, but even that is not a good sign. Also, I’ve never had such a painful experience getting simple bite-​wing X-​rays before.
I strongly distrust SmileCare and have felt the same sentiment expressed by all the other reviewers – that they are out to get your money. The only person who felt professional and honest there was the dentist, who I only saw for a few minutes during my visit. Dealing with the rest of the employees and their very inefficient system was not worth it.
Stay far away from SmileCare and go somewhere nice.

If you don’t want to read the whole review, let me sum it up:
They will screw you out of as much money as possible!
I went to this SmileCare Dentistry on Mira Mesa Blvd to get my wisdom teeth out because they quoted me a better price with my insurance ($ 600) than any other dentist. I was initiatially pretty pleased with getting my wisdom teeth out so I went back for a cleaning.
They refused to give me a regular (free with my insurance) cleaning and told me that I needed a ‘deep cleaning’ first (which cost $ 500) because my teeth were so bad. I was shocked but I did it because I don’t want my teeth falling out and i figured there’s no way they’d actually REFUSE to give me a regular cleaning unless my teeth were REALLY bad. When I was getting my ‘deep cleaning’, the dentist said something about how she didn’t understand why I was getting a deep cleaning because my teeth were fine. So I just wasted that $ 500 for no reason? They told me I NEEDED the deep cleaning, but the dentist told me she wouldn’t even need to numb my mouth because my teeth were pretty clean. It was a complete scam to get $ 500.
Then, over EIGHT MONTHS after I first got my wisdom teeth out, I got a bill for ANOTHER $ 600 that I owe (in addition to the $ 600 I already paid) for my wisdom teeth surgery. They apparently messed up when checking my insurance and needed me to pay an additional $ 600. I guess that explains why they were cheaper than anyone else. I tried to fight it, but ended up paying it to keep them from messing up my credit. That means I have paid them a total of $ 1700 for a teeth cleaning and a wisdom teeth removal. I will NEVER go here again and I recommend that you avoid them as well.
I have talked to three or four other people who have had similar billing problems with this company. Try it yourself, ask anyone you know if they have used Smile Care and I guarantee you know at least one person who’s been screwed by them. STAY AWAY!