Make a Smile

Dr. Kris, is an amazing Dr. I love the way he discusses your options and gives you choices. We have been patients for many years and my kids are now teenagers. Thank you for your wonderful staff!!!

4 years later… My daughter and son still love the Make A Smile dental office staff and DDS !!
I’ll never go any where else! Thank you for the kind care you guys provide!!!

Love Make a Smile! I have 4 kids and scheduling appointments at the same time is essential. They have enough friendly staff to accommodate us all at the same time. M a S also provides ortho treatment, so we can kill 2 birds with one stone. The office staff is super helpful. Love, love Make a Smile!

We absolutely love Make A Smile! The staff is very knowledgable, helpful and patient. My daughter has been going here since she was 3, she is now 7 and she always looks forward to her appointments! It is a great atmosphere for children of all ages.

My children are 12 and 9. We have been coming to Make A Smile since they were both toddlers when they were in a different location. The staff is friendly, good with kids and sensitive to some of the «scary» procedures that they may go through.

I have been bringing my children hear for a couple years now and all the Drs. are very helpful and patient. The staff as well. I would recommend make a smile.

I have 4 children with varying degrees of dental difficulties. This is by far the best dentist I’ve ever been to. I’m currently taking up all 4 dental exam chairs because they make an effort to get all 4 of my kids in for cleanings at the same time. Seriously best staff and Dr. Sabrina is amazing! We also do ortho thru them and we’ve had a great experience!

The staff has been great to my kids. They can put them at ease and also work with them when they’re nervous about their visit. Dr. Sabrina has been wonderful with them also. They are also very timely with appts.

Make a smile is great! They have good customer service and making appointments is convenient. I would recommend this office to all of my friends.

I have been coming here for over 5 years, first with my son and now my young daughter. I have always had a wonderful experience with the both the office staff as well as amazing treatment and attention by the dentists and assistants to my children’s dental needs. My son has gone through an entire orthodontic treatment plan, and at the age of 11 is already into his retainer phase with his teeth completely straightened! I encourage you to try this dentist in the future. They make dental care fun for children and flexible for parents.

Sure do miss Dr Monica, who started the practice over 10 years ago. No one seems to want to tell me if she’s ever coming back. Office support over the phone is terrible and seems like there are new faces in the office each time we come. Always takes longer than normal to have the dentist take a look after cleaning. They seem to be over scheduled and always running behind schedule. Convenience is what keeps us coming. But now that there are other pediatric dentists in town, we have other options.

Always great service rooms full of smiles. Dr Terry is great with our kids been coming here since 2010. Great front desk service.

Let’s make this clear — I wish I could rate the dentists and orthodontists/​oral surgeons separately from the office staff.
I have 5 children who have been coming to this office since the business was in their last building — approximately 10 years. When my kids get their teeth cleaned, we take up all the available seats. I’ve had 3 in braces. One has seen the oral surgeon at least 3 times. Extractions, fillings, root canals, I have done it all. I come here A LOT. My money probably paid for those cool tvs in the ceiling and lights that look like jellyfishes. ;)
I used to enjoy coming here. The office staff was great. They knew my name. Asked how my day was — you know the little things. Did they really know me? No. They just knew who had an appointment and anticipated who was going to walk in. It’s called guest service, people. Learn it. Then they started hiring a lot of new people… terrible new people. And the last few years has been nothing but problems. I have not experienced a single interaction in the last year with anyone in the front office that has been anything other than awful — actually, let me clarify. My interactions from the time I check in are more like I’ve just rudely interrupted someone in the middle of some life changing conversation and the look and feeling I get is more one of «uhhh what do you want» than «welcome to our place of business». And this just makes me so sad.
In the last 6 months other things have started to happen. For example, they call to verify my appointments and leave the wrong time. Once I showed up at the time they said. When I got there, the lady told me I was a half hour late. I had to play her the message she left me on my cell phone (just happened to be the same lady!). Now I have to call them back and re-​verify the time?
Yesterday I had another terrible experience because once again one office staff person neglected to make notations on my file causing me to come all the way down there, taking the time out of my day.
These Dentists deserve five stars, and I’m sorry that this review will reflect on them. But unless the owners change what they’re doing in the front office, it doesn’t matter how great the dentists are, people like me who drive 30 minutes to take 5 kids and pay a ton of money will go elsewhere — there are PLENTY of choices. The office staff deserves zero stars.
I sincerely hope that this office sees a return to the days when it was a place of cheer and friendliness, I miss that place.

We have been coming here for 8 years, have changed insurance multiple times, and had cleanings, cavities, X-​rays, tooth accident, now braces. They have always been wonderful and always billed the insurance correctly. I even paid cash to come here when my insurance didn’t cover them. My daughter no longer has anxiety about going to the dentist, and for that I am grateful.

Make a Smile has a good, kid friendly atmosphere. They have bright colors and toys for children including video games. They have televisions and movies playing. The doctors are great!

Absolute worst customer service. I was over charged for the first treatment and told in place of a refund my account would have a credit. I prepaid for the second treatment and after taking a day off work I was told at the time of the second treatment that my child was not a candidate. My child needed a physical for the second treatment which cost me $ 300.00 out of pocket. If this dentist was competent they could have told me my child was not a candidate before charging me $ 1,100.00 and prior to requiring a $ 300.00 physical as they were knowledgable with regards to my child.

we have been bringing our two kids here for several years — –we have had great care from the hygienists, as well as the dentists. Dr. Chris and Dr. Maha are both great-​gentle, friendly and patient. My younger one had severe anxiety from a bad experience years ago, and they did a wonderful job helping her get over her stress.
We also have needed Ortho, for the youngest as well. Lyle is amazing, as is the rest of the staff. The people in general were great, the price was clear, and even when her treatment extended, the price did not change. I won’t go to a dentist based on price, but from what my friends are paying, it has always been reasonable.
Frankly, you get what you pay for — at Make a Smile, i get clean, friendly, warm and welcoming. I also get competency, ease of scheduling, movies on the ceiling, video games and massage chairs in the waiting room, and flexibility-​well worth it. We drive over 20 minutes to go here, and won’t be changing any time soon.

What a shame. We’ve been going to make-​a-​smile off and on for a few years now, but our recent experience has caused us to never want to deal with them or take our kids to them again.
The regular preventative exam and cleaning are fine, kids did well, enjoyed the lobby and kid-​friendly décor. But this past time, we were told my son had extra teeth growing and needed to see a specialist/​oral surgeon at the Folsom office. We immediately set up a consultation with the specialist. My husband took my son down for the consultation, and after another series of x-​rays, it was determined that it would be best to have the extra teeth pulled. A surgery date was scheduled, and we paid a $ 250 deposit which was «required to reserve all treatment appointments». We were assured multiple times that if the patient portion of the procedure was going to cost less than the $ 250 (and they anticipated it would be $ 150 or less).
When all was said and done, our portion was $ 85 and we were owed a refund of $ 165. They were ready to give us this refund on April 29^th, but I didn’t realize I had to have my husband’s credit card with me in order for them to issue the refund. They told me my husband could call in with his credit card number later.
He’s not the most responsible guy. He forgot. Then he lost his debit card and had to have a new one issued. We called this evening to ask them to send our refund via check since he no longer had the card.
That’s when the problems started. Apparently, just today their office received notice from our insurance company that the claim was denied (i’m guessing a coding error on their part, but I’m not in the medical billing field so I can’t be sure). I was told by the two gals I spoke with on the phone, Nicole and Tasha, that they were basically holding our $ 165 hostage until the insurance company paid them their portion and the best thing we could do is call our insurance company and «urge» them to send payment. Excuse me. I have a full time job. MY job is not to aid you in collecting from our insurance company. That’s YOUR job. Again, I do not have a background in medical billing. All that aside, Make a Smile still owes us our portion of the deposit that was solely supposed to be to reserve our treatment appointment (which again, we showed up to).
The best Tasha could do was tell me that she could pass a message on to Nilda, her manager. When I asked when Nilda would be in the office, Tasha said since she’s a manager, she didn’t have access to her schedule. What??? Your staff doesn’t know when a manger will be available? THAT makes no sense at all! Now I’ve had to go through the process of disputing the charge through my credit card company since I have zero faith in the office staff here ever getting our refund issued. Again, if just going for a 100% covered by insurance preventative cleaning and you anticipate NO problems, they’re not a bad place. But heaven forbid you have any issues where there is a co-​pay or deposit required! Its just a mess!

We have been at Make A Smile for about 10 years and have been very satisfied. We first went there for regular dental services and now I have two children receiving orthodontic care there as well. My children feel comfortable and enjoy their visits.

Basics: Good atmosphere for kids, appalling business practice.
I took my two kids here for their «6-​month» check up. The place is all set up for kids with primary colors, clean professional atmosphere. The lobby has furniture, games, books, toys, TVs all geared towards keeping kids occupied and parents calm. The back office is also set up perfectly for kids… TVs on the ceiling, X-​ray machine easy and non intimidating was a nice touch. I can tell that a lot of thought went into space planning and setting up the clinic to make every one feel good.
The check up was fine, uneventful you would say. The hygienist basically did a glorified tooth brushing and flossing… hey we are talking about young kids here with little teeth. I felt that I could have done basically the same thing with a sonic care toothbrush. :)
My kids wanted bubblegum fluoride and they were out, then why did they tell us that was an option? The dentist came in, very nice and with a smile. I like that. She was great with my kids… I felt she genuinely cared. I did not think much about the fact that she spent about 2 minutes with each of my kids. We were in/​out in less then 30 minutes for both kids.
Ahhhhhhh. Then reality set in. I saw my bill the next month for over $ 400 and my insurance paid over $ 300 and left me a balance of about $ 70 bucks. Now I don’t have an issue paying for services, BUT come on… why is anyone (insurance or cash) paying basically $ 200 per kid for a 15 min tooth brushing and exam!
The next month I was at my Dentist and asked him… He said that the Dr. at «Make a Smile» is a specialist and therefore qualifies to charge more then other dentists?
Am I missing something here? we are talking about 15 minutes on baby teeth that are going to fall out??? Honestly, if we all paid cash how many of us would do that? When I called the clinic and asked the billing person about the charges, she got real defensive and somewhat snooty with a take it or leave it attitude.
OK… pretty simple for me… I will leave it! you lost a customer. :(