Dental Specialty Associates

Zero star! Never been in so much pain in my life!!!
–Firstly, the operation was done POORLY. The shot was injected in the wrong place on my gum, so I was in awful pain the ENTIRE time!!!
–There’s CUT under my tongue! WTF!!! I woke up 4 in the morning in pain! I had my teeth removed, not my tongue!
–no prescription was provided until after the pharmacy was already CLOSED!!!
Oh and I waited 2 hours for the appointment that THEY rescheduled. Never going back, and nor should you.

I been coming here for a while now and sometimes the wait has been bad but besides that I have had nice doctors and the staff have been quite nice to me as well. There are numerous departments so you are dealing with different receptionists and different doctors. I had a procedure 2 weeks ago and i was loving my dentist, Michael Abrams, DDS.

1) They said that they accept my insurance, but when I came to my appointment, they made me to pay additional $ 70.00.
2)Doctor did anesthesia, but he pulled out my tooth without waiting my gum freeze. I felt all. I told him. He said that I feel pressure, not pain. I ask him to do stitches, but he didn’t do it. So I had hole in my gum for 2 – 3 weeks.
3) They are not giving any oral instructions. Only paper instructions. Make sure you read carefully!
4) About 2 hours waiting time.

The waiting room was absolutely packed. Maybe 15 chairs, but 20 or more waiting. It’s like a game of musical chairs: if you get up to talk to a receptionist, someone WILL steal your seat.
It was obvious I’d be waiting a while. They only have 2 doctors!
I waited 3 HOURS & 40 MINUTES, despite having an appointment at 12:30.
I had to sit beneath a TV that was so loud, I couldn’t hear whose names they were calling.
Any time I asked how long the wait would be, I was told in no uncertain terms that they could not and WOULD not comment on that. You can tell they’ve been down this road before. From the start, the staff’s attitude is «It’s us versus them.»
NOBODY in this office likes their job. This bears repeating. NOBODY — HERE — LIKES — THEIR — JOB!!! And it seems the only outlet they have to vent their frustration is to take it out on you — the patient.
One angry patient was verbally assaulting one of the receptionists. His behavior was unacceptable and threatening. But instead of being a professional and telling him «Verbal abuse and threats will not be tolerated» the receptionist retaliated in front of everyone by telling him «You’re disgusting! You’re disgusting! You’re disgusting! You’re disgusting…» She repeated it about 8 to 10 times.
This man was missing most of his upper-​front teeth. He kept fighting and called her a «B****» which — I don’t care — there is no situation in which it is acceptable to call a woman that word. EVER.
Still, rather than being the grown-​up in the situation, she said to him: «At least I have my teeth!»
Not cool. Just! NOT! Cool!
Sadly my review doesn’t end there.
Once I was finally brought in to see the doctor, I had to wait an additional hour. The nurse gave me no verbal warning before running tests on me like taking my blood pressure. She also forgot to take the cuff off my arm and so I sat there alone in a room with a cuff tight around my arm for 20 minutes before I finally tore it off.
Finally the doctor came in at around 5:30. Before greeting me, he told the nurse «I’m done. This is my last patient. I’m leaving at 6. Send everyone else home.»
The other 6 or 8 people still waiting to be seen were about to be told — after waiting over 3 hours — that they wouldn’t be seen today.
The doctor took a quick look at my inner lip (I was there to be treated for a mucocele) and said there was nothing he could do, and that I should come back when it’s swollen.
When I tried to ask questions about what a «mucocele» is, he told me «I’m done explaining it to you. I already told you everything you need to know». I had to assert myself in order to get the information I needed to help me understand what I was dealing with.
So if I want his help, I have to come back and repeat this entire ordeal again.
I told him that, at the very least, the receptionists should be informing their clients that even with their appointment time, they should expect to wait as much as 2 hours or more.
Had I KNOWN I’d have to wait — I’d have eaten a meal before I came — used the bathroom before I came — cancelled my evening plans before I came — brought a phone charger — and most importantly brought my LAPTOP so at LEAST I would be able to make USE of the time and get some WORK done.
I wouldn’t CARE about waiting 4 hours if I could use the time and be productive!
He actually told me – in these very words — «It’s not my responsibility» when discussing the wait time.
I told him «It IS your responsibility.» I turned to the inept nurse behind me «And it is HER responsibility. And it is the receptionist’s responsibility. — And it is MY responsibility!»
He asked me «Wait — how is it YOUR responsibility???»
I told him «It’s MY responsibility to maintain a positive attitude — to say something — to stay calm — to offer a solution. And it is YOUR responsibility to hear me out!»
They all agreed they would see what they can do about it, but still I would need to talk to THEIR managers about the situation if anything would ever get done about it.
We’ll see if that ever happens.

If I could give this place zero stars I would. I waited for four hours with a friend for the removal of one wisdom tooth, when she had actually been contacted by the office that day to move her appointment to an earlier time. Every single walk in appointment was admitted before her, and she quickly became the last name on the list. When we expressed frustration at this, the front desk staff began openly complaining about us to one another. Never ever ever ever ever ever ever come here.

Do I really have to give a star?
Short story,
— Called the day before to confirm the insurance
— 7:30am, came in, filled out all forms and waited
— 9am, was told that my insurance was not excepted
«We don’t confirm the insurance on the phone,
you just have to come in (and wait for 2 hours),
then we can confirm (that we don’t accept it).»
STAY AWAY

Absolute waste of your time. When I made my first appointment with them, I EXPLICITLY asked if they take my insurance. They said yes. When I got there, after filling out 15 minutes worth of forms, they told me they don’t take my insurance. When I told them I asked when I made the appointment, the receptionist said very nonchalantly «It wasn’t me you spoke to.» So not only did I waste an afternoon, I also actually wasted a week and a half waiting, because then I had to find another dentist for a a pressing issue.
On top of that, I told them to shred the forms I filled out. They said they would. Then I get an auto email from them after my appointment. The only way they had my email address was on the forms I filled out. If they shredded them, how did they know my email address?
When a staff crews up each time you deal with them, it’s not a one off thing. They are awful.

By far, The WORST DENTIST I’ve ever been to!
I made an appointment two weeks ago to get a cleaning. I work a few blocks from here so decided to go on my lunch break. I was sitting in the waiting room for an hour and a half before a young lady (not friendly) brings me in to take X-​Rays for about 5 mins. Then I go back to the waiting room to sit for another half an hour to see the dentist who was nice for about 10 — 15 minutes.
The following week I was recommended to see a Periodontist. Again, I try going on my lunch break. I wait for an hour before I see Dr. Veronique Krieger. She sits down starts poking my gums without even a warning that it might hurt and tells me I have gum disease. She pokes my hand with the same object she used in my mouth and touches my hand.“Did that hurt?” No. Well that’s how your gums are suppose to feel. You have gum disease. No details as to how bad it is, no explanation. She just gives me a pamphlet and tells me that I need to pay $ 700 for a cleaning or they won’t do it. She was not friendly or comforting at all.
Please save the time and don’t come here!

The dental equivalent of a back alley abortion. No exaggeration. The examination room was dirty. Dr. Mauer was nasty. At least the job (4 teeth pulled) did get done under a general anesthesia. But any follow up care? No! I once had a root canal in rural S. Korea and it was better than this.

It doesn’t seem like this place needs more negative reviews, but I have to share my experience. I went in for a consultation two weeks ago. I waited 45 minutes to see Dr. Gold. I was slightly annoyed, but I am used to waiting at doctors office so no big deal. I had a good consultation with Dr Gold and he seemed very knowledgeable. We set up an appointment for me to come in the following Friday at 2pm.
I left work early that Friday and was in the office by 2pm. I was told that Dr. Gold leaves at 3 on Fridays so at 230, when I was still waiting I asked the receptionists if I would still be seen that day as he leaves at 3. They assured me that Dr. Gold will leave after he is done with all of his patients.
At 4pm I am finally taken into the office. And I am not exaggerating this was 4pm. I had elected not to get general anesthesia, so I had spent the day eating normal food. (If you do get general you cannot eat beforehand). I was put into an a room and the nurse or whoever asks me «Did you eat today» I said… yes… I’m not getting general anesthesia… She just goes oh… yeah Dr. Gold cannot see you he has to leave. They were just going to give me a different doctor without telling me /​asking me if that was okay. Mind you this is after already waiting for 2 hours. I FLIPPED OUT. I believe appropriately so. DR Gold comes into the office and goes «my daughter had to be taken to the hospital on an ambulance I cannot begin a 1 hour procedure right now». So fine. Life happens, if this was true I would say okay no problem. Here is the thing, we were there for an additional 20 minutes and we saw that Dr. Gold remained sitting in his office and did not go anywhere. So I tried to make another appointment with Dr Gold and I said okay give me 2pm the next Friday. The receptionist says, you have to do it before 11 or he might not be able to see you. ARE YOU KIDDING ME. WHY DID I LEAVE WORK EARLY AND SET ASIDE THE ENTIRE WEEKEND IF YOU KNEW THIS WAS AN ISSUE WITH A 2PM FRIDAY APPOINTMENT!!! Are you kidding me. So yes. I don’t really believe that the Dr had to go conveniently to the hospital. Furthermore it seems that his daughter is fine this week as they called me a few times to confirm an appointment for this week which I of course cancelled.
To add to that I saw a different doctor on Saturday after deciding there was no way I am going back there and the DR said i have a very high risk procedure because of the proximity of my nerve to the teeth. He said he cannot just pull the teeth out but needs to have a CT scan to have a better picture of the nerve. Something Dr. Gold never mentioned.
And finally — the receptionists there are completely incompetent. COMPLETELY. They are rude and they treated everything I said as if I was the idiot. I called several times during the week leading up to my appointment for the procedure. Most of the time they were too busy to talk to me. Finally the receptionist was able to get cost information for one of my insurances. I called the day before to make sure she had received information about the second one. I was told she is a professional don’t worry about it.
What happens when i get there? She has gotten all the incorrect information. This entire time she has been getting information for my dad.
Long story short — do not go here.

DONT GO THERE, it is a butcher place. I went there to get an opinion. The receptions were unfriendly. One look at the film, the doctor, Jessica S. said the two teeth had to be extracted. I said I am not ready. And my intent was there to get an opinion and follow by another dentist to get a second opinion. The Doctor said you are here already, have the teeth extracted because they have infection. I knew one of the two needs to come out. The second one had gotten some infection from the first but I had no trouble with it. A few times, I was going to walk out but they kept insisiting that everything was setup for me already. So I let them removed the two.
I realized I made a BIG MISTAKE, I regretted so much. I had no pain and I could have taken antibiotic to get rid of the infection of the second tooth.
I called up my cousin who is a dentist. She said dentists are starving now. They love to pull teeth and then do implant which costs 4 thousands dollars for each tooth.
DONT GO THERE. WHATVER YOU DO, DONT GO THERE. IT IS A FACTORY, BUTCHER PLACE.

I’d rather board an alien spaceship and be dissected for a few hours than go here.
I wouldn’t go here for any dental procedure if you paid me $ 50,000 to do it.
I won’t bore you with the details of how my girlfriend’s wisdom tooth removal surgery led to results bordering on medical malpractice and how she received zero help or apologies afterwards. If you’ve read the rest of these reviews and have half a brain, you’d expect that already.
Bottom line: never go here. Don’t let your friends go here. If possible, sue them and/​or otherwise cause as much financial damage to this business as humanly possible.

The most disgusting office I have ever been to.
When I first walked into the examining room I noticed blood on the wall.
Then I looked to the floor and it looked as though it hadnt been mopped in months.
The equipment was filthy, had yellow grime all over it.
I noticed what looked to be a rusty butter knife covered in duct tape. have a look here.
Once I saw this rusty butter knife covered in duct tape I knew I had to leave, I have too much self respect.
They refused to refund me the BS fee of $ 150 they took for doing nothing.

I wish I could give this place minus stars the staff is horrible the worst customer service in NYC. They over charged and tried to rob me blind with all these charges that were not related to my implant procedure. Once the implant was done they wanted to charge for the abutment and some sort of healing cap separately. I now have an implant in my mouth for almost a year with the work unfinished. They are crooks and the doctor their smelled like cigarettes. I wouldn’t send my worst enemy to this place they need to be reported to the ADA and shut down. I see most of the people on this review list agree with me. THEY ARE THE WORST. DO NOT GO HERE FOR ANYTHING!

This place is horrible!!! DO NOT GO… Rude scammers and do not care about patients it is a very bad dental office

THIS IS THE MOST UNPROFESSIONAL PLACE IN THE ENTIRE CITY OF NEW YORK!
Ghetto, ratchet ladies with huge attitudes and poor vocabulary! I came in to ask a question about my bill and the answer I got was «oh well your insurance ran out now you have to pay; and in full! that’s not what I asked you Joyce, then she said let me referred you to Tanisha who was like high on dope or something, not much help then she referred me to Maya who was like lady I call you later with the answer! WTF! I do not recommend this place at all. Also their services are done by dental assistants not by a Dentist!!! be aware, the dentist only come to check after the DA finishes. BIG RED FLAG!!! Also while the DA is working on you they are having entire conversations with other DAs about their place of employment and how much it sucks!!! PLEASE STAY AWAY!!!

Terrible service. I called to schedule a root canal and they put me on hold for 10 minutes and then hung up. I called back and not only were they very rude, but they said they would not accept e-​mail x-​rays from my dentist. Kept saying «we need an x-​ray for our record.» Hmmm, if I emailed it to you, it would be on your record… Terrible service to me is an indication of terrible management. I didn’t read the Unilocal reviews before calling (since I found this place on my Metlife insurance preferred providers) but want to save others the 20 minutes of my life I just wasted here.

UNPROFESSIONAL, CROWDED, UNCLEAN.
Admin staff is unprofessional and rude. After I scheduled an appointment for 6 PM, they left me frantic voicemail the day of the appointment to reschedule because the doctor had to leave early.
I called back and no one knew what I was talking about. One lady insisted they didn’t accept my insurance, other lady said they did but I had to come in early, like, as soon as possible.
I left work an hour early, filled out my paperwork, but all I did was sit in a large, crowded room with many Medicare patients.
The 6PM time came and went, other people were seen before me, so I canceled the appointment and left.
Terrible experience!

The first time I went to this place, it was for a consultation and to make an appt. for my wisdom teeth removal. The girls behind the counter were nice as they tried to accommodate for everyone there and the place was pretty packed. I was lucky enough to get the last empty seat in the waiting room. My oral surgeon was Dr. Maurer. It seemed like he was the only surgeon working there though I was sure there were more lurking around somewhere. I waited about half an hour before an intern led me to an exam room and took my x-​rays. Dr. Maurer seemed quite put off saying that, «You’re already of age. You don’t need your Mom with you.» I guess he assumed that I wanted to get my wisdom on the very same day when I only wanted a consultation. My response was that I didn’t want to be alone all drugged up and staggering about after the surgery. He then prescribed antibiotics and vicodin to me beforehand which I though was pretty nice of him.
The second time I went was for the actual removal of my impacted wisdom teeth. It went pretty quickly as I remembered nothing except being knocked out in less than a minute. When I woke up though, I was feeling quite drowsy but Dr. M was nowhere to be seen. I was alone. I also noticed that there was a bunch of needle shots on my forearm instead of the only one on my hand I saw before I was knocked out. I wasn’t sure whether it was done by Dr. M or by interns… most likely the interns. The Indian? intern (tall, very tan guy wearing light blue scrubs) saw that I came to and guided me toward the recovery room. My Mom found me and sat by me. I was given no instructions whatsoever on what to do though. Shortly later on we were joined in the same recovery room with another girl and her mom, and another woman and her boyfriend. Six people in one recovery room the size of 2 – 3 toilet stalls for over one hour isn’t that fun.
HERE IS THE WTF NEWS: Since they had to cut into my gums for removing my wisdom teeth, I was still bleeding quite a lot and both my cotton gauzes and my mouth filled with blood and saliva. My Mom told me to spit when I WASN’T SUPPOSED TO! After waiting one hour in the recovery room my grogginess disappeared but I really needed new gauzes and saw that every other patient had a gauze packet except the other Asian girl and I. I didn’t understand wtf was going on so I stumbled a bit over to find Dr. M. He was sitting reading some other patient’s charts with some other blonde intern. I tried to speak through the blood and gauze, «I NEED MORE GAUZE!!!». The blonde intern said, «Go back to the recovery room.» I repeated, «I NEED MORE GAUZE!!!» She said, «Just keep biting down, your doctor would see you later.»…and I believed her like a fool!!!
It was already almost two hours since my surgery ended and I was pissed! So I tracked down the Indian Intern and said I needed more gauze and told him that I was going home. He asked me did I receive any instructions. I didn’t know what instructions he was talking about since he wasn’t being specific enough so I just showed my pill bottles. He came back with the packet of gauze I was supposed to get in the first place with the post-​operation instructions. I couldn’t believe I waited all this time for this shit and just left.
The third time (today) I went for a morning appointment because I was confused and terrified about getting food into my extraction holes. He only looked at one hole for less than five seconds before telling me to just «Keep rinsing.» That’s all? I thought that I would get some special paste to keep the hole covered or squirting needle thing to help me rinse, but nothing. And he just left the room without looking back. So I left feeling that this appointment was useless. I wasn’t sure but I thought he was annoyed at seeing me. I thought that even if the interns sucked, Dr. M was still nice but apparently, I was wrong.
BOTTOM LINE: GO ELSEWHERE!!! DON’T GO HERE!!!

I’m giving them 3 stars. If it was for Dr. Llisenia Rivera, they’d receive 1 star. I recently received a referral for Dr. Rivera for a tooth extraction. When I got to the office, I was kind of freaked out, to say the least. There were some pretty ghetto people there. The girls at the front desk weren’t very accommodating — I wouldn’t say they were nice or mean… perhaps they were just busy because the place was super packed.
I was scheduled at 2:30 and wasn’t seen by anyone until 3:15 for an x-​ray. Afterwards, I had to wait for another 30 minutes. During my wait, I was seriously and frantically trying to locate another oral surgeon because I just did not think anyone here would be very competent.
Well, I was wrong. Dr. Rivera was extremely nice. She was professional and super quick with my tooth extraction. She talked me through the entire process and explained what I needed to do afterwards. I’d definitely recommend seeing her if you’re in need of an oral surgeon. Better yet, I’m coming back for an implant because they only charge $ 1500! That’s super cheap compared to the other dentists I’ve spoken to.
All in all, if you’re stuck going here because your insurance sucks. Don’t feel too bad. The waiting room experience isn’t great but Dr. Rivera makes up for it.