I went to the location in Sunnyside, Queens. I have been to many dentists both in the US and abroad, and this was by far the worst dental experience I have had. The dentist (I believe his name was Dr. Hasan) was extremely rough and seemed shady, his assistant seemed to have no idea what he was doing, and the office was very shabby.
After being led from the cramped waiting room, I was sat in the dentist chair and a young man took my information and typed it into the computer. It seemed like he didn’t know what he was doing. He handed me a small pad to sign electronically, and took my signature repeatedly without telling me or showing me what I was signing. When I did look over, he was checking boxes for procedures I was not having done. I had come in for a simple check-up and cleaning, but he had checked a box for “Filling” and some other boxes. When I commented on it he unchecked some boxes, and looked for and failed to find any appropriate boxes. He seemed generally to not know what he was doing. There seemed to be a significant language barrier, so it’s possible he did not understand what he was filling out. He also may have been trying to claim money for procedures that I was not having done. Or, it seems most likely to me, he simply had no idea what he was doing.
This is not a big deal to me, but he shouted my information (including my social security number) to another room for someone to call my insurance company. It did not seem like a very secure system.
The young man took some x-rays. Then the dentist came in, and told me that my insurance covered x-rays but not a cleaning. I quickly located the place in the paperwork that said it did cover cleaning, and he laughed and said “You got me.” I am not sure that he was purely joking.
He immediately started the cleaning, after no apparent effort to check for cavities or other problems. He gave me the roughest cleaning I have ever had. I have been to many dentists, both in the US and in Taiwan, and none have ever made me wince as hard as this one. He seemed careless, unconcerned, and heavy-handed and did the whole thing very quickly. He would sometimes rest his elbow against my forehead to keep it straight. After he was done, he told me that I was bleeding a lot and that he would give me a prescription for some mouthrinse. I asked him if I had some sort of condition or why my gums were bleeding and he only answered that it was because I hadn’t seen a dentist in a year. I do not typically have a problem with bleeding gums; my guess is that this was caused by the roughness of the treatment. I had another question about dental hygiene, but decided not to ask after his gruff, perfunctory answer to the one before.
Also, the office did not feel hygeinic. Though nothing was filthy, nothing looked clean, either. It was an unpleasant place, down to small details like the wall clock, which simply ticked every second back and forth between 10:38 and 10:39, moving senselessly. Obviously this would not be important on its own, but in terms of patient experience, one wants a dentist to care about details.
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