Hudecz Joy, DDS

I was a patient of Dr. Hudecz for five years or so as a kid. She is a warm, attentive doctor whose only priority is what’s best for the patient. The environment in her office was always positive, and there was palpable affectionate between her and her staff.
Dr. Hudecz can be blunt, and it looks like to a few terribly sensitive souls her dry wit and willingness to argue for the best practices (with non-​expert patients) have come across as unfriendly. She is nothing of the sort. She is a massively popular, personally invested doctor who took great interest in and care of her patients. I can’t recommend her highly enough.

Dr. Hudecz has about the worst bedside manner imaginable for any doctor I have ever had in my entire life. If I could give her zero stars, I would.
Basically, I had a braces package with her about 12 years ago, which was 100% paid for. When I had the braces removed, she put a permanent retainer on my bottom teeth, and told me that I should wear it for 10 years.
I honestly do not remember my experiences with Dr. Hudecz as an adolescent, but I will certainly never forget this most recent one.
I recently accepted a year-​long position in Haiti that did not include dental insurance, and my dentist recommended that I remove the bottom retainer since it had been longer than ten years, and it made it difficult for me to floss the bottom teeth. He said that removing it would be a good idea if I was going to be without access to dental care for a year as it would help prevent the formation of cavities in those teeth.
Although he offered to remove the retainer for me, I decided to go back to Dr. Hudecz because the removal would be covered by the previously paid for braces package. What a mistake.
When I got to the office, Dr. Hudecz insulted me and my dentist for having the idea to remove the retainer. She presented a scenario to me in which 20 years down the line my teeth have moved, started rotting and getting infected all because I removed the retainer. She aggressively asked me «you don’t want that, do you?!» She essentially called me stupid to my face, and when I told her that my dentist recommended the removal of the retainer, she asked who the dentist was. When I gave her his name, she sad something along the lines of «ah yes, young Dr. X. What would he know anyway?» Then she proceeded to essentially terrorize me into agreeing not only to keep a bottom retainer, but to pay her to put a new one on. She was sarcastic, rude and highly insulting, and she did not answer my questions in a way that allowed me to make my own decision, but shoved her «professional» opinion down my throat.
When I returned to have my old retainer removed and the new one put on, she didn’t even do the work herself, but had one of her assistants do it, and she still charged me an exorbitant amount for the work. Before I was seated to have the work done, she said «you’ll be paying for this, I assume?» «No, I came here for you to do this work and I didn’t bring a form of payment.»
Needless to say, I will never, ever, go back to this doctor again, and if you value your self-​esteem and your wallet, not to mention your teeth, I would suggest that you never go to her either.

One of the most absurdly bad medical experiences of my life (and I’m 55 yrs old).
The doctor was a combination of Nazi Führer and barely controlled Borderline Personality Disorder. Not only is her lack of professionalism astounding, she includes her posse of kind but terrorized staff to witness her bullying of both patient and patient’s parents, if she doesn’t like you. Upon asking Dr. Hudecz politely to answer some questions that came to mind once my 10 yr old son had the full railroad track set on his teeth, she asked me, «how many», I guess based on whether or not she thought they were stupid. She discussed my son’s case in front of her whole staff and some other patients in the waiting room (a clear and unforgettable violation of the HIPAA privacy acts, with no remorse) and and demanded that since we would need to have a good working relationship for at least the next two years that she couldn’t work with me and demanded to remove the braces immediately. In order to save my innocent child from this rude monster I acknowledged my «mistake» and asked for forgiveness for whatever wayward notion she had about me. She included her kind but terrorized staff to witness her rude bullying and lack of professionalism. The next day I booked an appt with another doctor. My husband and I took my son for the second opinion and we were so relieved to receive a calm and sane approach to my son’s need for monitoring of his teeth as his jaw grows… The other doctor recommended that we remove the braces as they would do more harm than good. We had her remove them a week later because it is her legal obligation to do so if we ask and we wanted to avoid having to pay another doctor the hefty price of doing so. She rudely grilled my innocent 10 yr old son while he was about to have his braces removed (prisoner in her chair!) about why he wanted them gone, did we move to another orthodontist and had the mojo to tell my son that she was glad we were gone!!! This one is a nut job all the way!
Furthermore, sad but true, it’s a money making braces factory!!! All I can say is: To be forewarned is to be forearmed!

we have had a great experience with this orthodontist. our child’s teeth look amazing after 3 years of braces, rubberbands, etc. dr. hudecz does not mince words, and is pretty straight out with the reality of braces, she will not mislead a parent with regard to what can and cannot be done.
dr. hudecz was warm and engaging with our child, always greeted us with a smile, same with the staff. as for payment, we were on a payment plan, and there was never, ever a problem with payment. when we finally paid our last installment, she thanked us, acknowledging that times are tough for many parents. we would high recommend joy judecz.

I am no expert about orthodontists, so I can’t fully judge her knowledge. I can tell you that I would never go back to this doctor. She doesn’t answer questions, she treats us (parents) like we’re a nuisance. My son is frankly terrified of her. It seems like her staff is scared of her too. All in all, my son’s teeth seem like they are straightening. But it’s been a nightmare.

THIS WOMAN IS A CROOK. She put braces on my child. Months into the process, a gap has opening up between his two front teeth. I mentioned that I was concerned about this to Dr. Hudecz and she told me that she had no intention of fixing ‘all his teeth’. Which, of course, is news to me. She claims at this point that she only planned on fixing a crossbite, and that if we wanted everything else fixed… THAT WOULD BE ANOTHER $ 7000!!!
I was totally shocked. Because she «didn’t think I would pay» (she said, verbatim — as if my integrity had become the issue) she removed the wire holding my son’s braces together and threw us out. So, right now we are a hostage to this. She actually threw a 9 year old patient out with undone braces that are hurting him because we would like her to do the job she was actually hired to do. And which we’ve paid ALOT OF MONEY for. Really, this Dr. is shockingly bad. Do yourself a favor and avoid this practitioner!!!