Gentle Dental San Francisco

I wouldn’t go to Gentle Dental on Geary again if every tooth in my head hurt, my gums were bleeding, and they paid me a million dollars.
A wretched experience, from the paint peeling off the walls, to the dirty mop standing in a dirty bucket in one of the closets, to the botched job they did on a root canal and crown.
Let me explain. In mid-​February, 2016, Gentle Dental diagnosed the need for a root canal on a tooth in the upper left of my mouth, and recommended an endodonist in San Francisco. Trusting their advice, I had the root canal done by the specialist, and then, a week or so later, returned to Gentle Dental to have the crown installed.
A week ago, on vacation in Portland, Oregon, the tooth that had the root canal began to ache. The pain was so great I sought emergency dental services in Portland. After looking at x-​rays of my supposedly ‘repaired’ tooth, the Portland dentist shared the x-​rays with me and said he’d «never seen anything like it.» The root canal had been done all-​right – I could see the post – but the openings around the post had not been drained and then filled as is customary, and the pain I was feeling was emanating from the very tooth they claimed had been healed! An infection had set in the 2-​plus months. The Portland dentist, after consulting with a a local specialist, classified the procedure as a «Failed Root Canal Treatment.» He couldn’t believe that Gentle Dental hadn’t caught the problem and had, in fact, installed the crown
I’m scheduled to go to a Portland-​based specialist tomorrow morning to get the thing fixed, for $ 1800.00.
As a consumer I feel completely betrayed. The Portland dentist said I should seek recourse, which I’m in the process of doing, either from Gentle Dental directly or from Kaiser Permanente, the HMO which led me to Gentle Dental. Next time I’ll just tie my tooth to a door handle and have someone pull it from the other side…

The worst!!! In credibly unprofessional with no consideration or care for patients. I would NOT recommend this office AT for their lack of care and professionalism.

Terrible experience! Unprofessional, incompetent, & unpleasant personnel. This was not the experience I wanted for my son’s first dental experience. Less than 24 hrs before my son’s appt, I received a message saying that they were cancelling his appt since they could not verify his insurance. Why did they wait until the day before to take care of that task?! The appointment was scheduled three months in advance! In the end, it was resolved by ME, with two phone calls in under 15 minutes. Then, at our appt, no one greeted us with a smile — not even the dentist, Dr. Rai — who actually seemed very bothered to have to deal with us — even though we had to wait 40 minutes to see her! Not a child friendly office — nothing in the wait room, and I had to change my son’s diaper on the bathroom floor. My son was so tired from waiting to see the dentist that he was super cranky by the time we saw Dr. Rai, who did not even try to console or warm up to him. She spent less than 5 minutes with us before writing a referral to a pediatric dentist — which is the only reason why we were there in the first place. Good grief, what a horrible experience!

ditto to all said by michael h…
now we have the very efficient and
knowledgeable dr rai!
will return soon
jdmyers

Don’t be fooled by these guys name, these guys are truly unprofessional, overcharging dentists with ill intentions. I went in for a check-​up a week ago and I will describe my experience in FULL.
First off, I set up an appointment with these guys 2 MONTHS in advance. They called me the day before my appointment at 2:00pm saying they needed to re-​schedule my 9:00am appointment. WHO DOES THAT. They rescheduled thankfully for a 8am after me asking them nicely. HOWEVER I show up at 7:55am and long behold, NO ONE IS EVEN THERE. I had to wait until 8:10am before the first person showed up. After they finally got me in and checked me they said I had 8 cavities. That is not my issue, my issue is that the bill they gave me was for 1200 $! I have insurance, granted it’s Cigna HMO and not that amazing, it should not cost that much for 8 cavities (just basic cavities mind you).
I did a little research on the bill they sent me, turns out they added 400 $ in «desensitizing» agent per tooth. The other dentist I contacted, and even in just a quick cursory search online, I found that this is COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY for my cavity procedure. They did not check with me about this, they simply expected me to pay this bill without actually reading it. Thank god I did not.
DO NOT USE THESE GUYS THEY WILL OVERCHARGE YOU AND PROVIDE YOU BAD SERVICE.

I should have believed the terrible reviews on Unilocal.I made an appointment over the phone 2 weeks ago. Somehow, the receptionist remembers our conversation (mainly because she couldn’t get my name right) but somehow she never input my appointment. 20 minutes later I left their office and was never seen; Such a waste of time. I wish I could give them –1 stars. Stay away!!!

One can’t help but notice some of the negative reviews this particular Gentle Dental has received. However, even after reading said reviews, I (somewhat cautiously) gave this office a chance to prove them wrong. This was solely based on one particular positive review by another patient that really got my attention.
Honestly…I’m very glad I did. Do the facilities need updating? Yes. (From my understanding they are scheduled for a renovation in the near future.) Do appointments get rescheduled? Yes, but that happens everywhere. The important thing here is that the staff is VERY wonderful and friendly – they treat patients with kindness and respect. Between Cuca the office manager, Linda the office administrator, my amazing dentist Dr. Fariba, and her assistant Amy, I receive 5 STAR dental care and customer service each and every visit. Right now they are short-​staffed a dentist, yet they still manage to schedule and complete procedures in a timely manner, even if they are bouncing back-​and-​forth between two patients in different rooms.
If you are an impatient person with a busy schedule, this may not be the office for you. For everyone else, I encourage you to stop in and give them a shot. I can only truly speak from my experience, and it is this experience that allows me to speak so highly of them.
Let the haters hate. All I know is that I love this team. Thank you Gentle Dental Geary! :)

Worst place ever. Extremely unprofessional, dated, and overpriced. Beware. I truly feel this place scammed me into thinking that my insurance covered the dental plan they created for me. Still paying them money (thousands) for a jacked up crown that had to be adjusted three times and is still not right– but I refuse to return. I feel stupid for staying there as long as I did (a few months to have a crown and wisdom teeth removal) Do yourself a favor and please, please, please, stay away.

This place is A DUMP !! Everything is in need of a paint job. All the fixtures looked old, worn, chipped or torn, like the exam chair. The waiting room rug has a nasty stain in it. The new doctor asked for a better probe to which to DA claims «we don’t have doctor» he asked for a plastic one. They looked again ‚“we don’t have doctor”. I asked for a copy of my X-​rays to which they claimed .“Da machin’ as broke come back tomorrow”… Da machin is still broke… Corporate get your Sh*t together this is a disgrace to the DDS profession as a whole. Why would I want anything to go in my mouth when you can’t even keep your office clean ??? I had to give a star to post. I take it back.

My actual dental work was good, not great, but my real issue is that they charged me more money about 6 months after everything was totally settled. I had wisdom teeth removed which went well except for one that she pried on my mouth for 1 hour. It hurt. After I paid nearly $ 2000 out of pocket and my insurance paid several thousand dollars, they notify me 6 months later that I owe them $ 50 more. Are you kidding me? I settled everything in the office and then they ask for money which is totally absurd when we are talking about these dollar amounts. I found out only recently when I got a forwarded mail that they were going to send my $ 50 bill to collections. Rip off!

I found Gentle Dental because they are listed as in-​network providers for my HMO dental insurance. I read a few reviews and was nervous, especially since I have never had an outstanding experience with any dental office. I saw two dentists from Gentle Dental a few days ago. I started at the Geary St. office with Dr. Forouzan, who seemed kind and genuinely concerned. She explained that I needed an emergency root canal, and had the staff immediately start working on it. The receptionist called all over town trying to get me in with an endodontist and ended up getting me in at their Oakland location later the same day. I was REALLY nervous about having a root canal, but the staff and Dr. Amanda made me feel at ease and thoroughly answered all my questions. The root canal wasn’t even remotely painful. In fact, it was over pretty quickly, and I didn’t feel a thing. I left feeling much better and was very happy with the care I received at both locations. I will definitely use Gentle Dental from now on.

I love this place. Every time I walk in to get my braces tightened, I’m greeted with great customer service and treated as I’m the number one priority. Linda is a great asset to the company! She makes appointments around my schedule so I won’t have to take a day off from work or if I’m hosting an event to reschedule or cancel an appointment.

I am Shocked! SHOCKED I tell you… that my experience is so vastly different than the Unilocalers who came before me. I had come to Unilocal before going to this dentist and walked into the office with trepidation as a result. But really, I was relieved to find VERY friendly staff and a competent dentist in Dr. Forouzan. The equipment is dated, that is true. But 10 years ago I would not have thought so, so I am able to overlook that. But that is why I gave 4 and not 5 stars.
I transferred my care from a very fancy office that I had to leave because my employer dental plan is minimal and I have big dental issues that the dentist was going to change me mega bucks for. I decided to purchase a HMO plan from Delta Dental and searched out the dental offices that took that insurance. (They are all poorly rated on Unilocal,Yikes!) Anyhow, I got great service at a reasonable price. IO still have lots of work to go, but so far so good. No long waits, no bogus dental work recommended. It is all good. Give it a try. You might be surprised.

I will say, everyone at the office was very nice. They fixed my tooth and it looks good. It just took a really long time. Apparently they had some water damage they were dealing with, likely didn’t help the wait time. Though I watched the cleaners work quickly behind me as I waited in the chair. I took it as an opportunity to relax but eventually it became a bit much. It was just too long of a wait. Glad my tooth got fixed same day, just wish it didn’t take all day.

It pains me to write a not-​so-​great review about my Dentist’s office; mostly because I do still go there and I don’t want this review to literally pain me when I return for my next appointment. (HMOs…what can ya do?)
The plus side to Gentle Dental is that the staff is really nice. They’re not a super talkative bunch, especially my dentist, but they are pleasant and friendly. I really like one of the dental hygienists a lot though. She’s always funny and sweet and ALMOST makes you forget that people are going to be poking around in your mouth for at least half an hour (on a good day).
Now for the negatives, of which there are, unfortunately, many:
1. However long you think you’ll be at that office, double it (at least). For my last appointment, I was about 10 minutes late and I STILL showed up before any of the dental hygienists or my doctor. I also had to get some crowns put in recently and I was there for more than 3 hours per visit on multiple occasions. More than half of that time was spent just waiting for someone to come back to the room.
2. Despite the name, the dentist is not gentle at all. I don’t have any particular phobias about going to the dentist, so I’m not wholly bothered by it, but I know a good many people who would not appreciate the roughness experienced here.
3. They’ll try to drain your funds completely. This section could be quite lengthy, but I will only mention one example. Apparently I had cavities in all of my wisdom teeth (go me!), so for whatever reason, my dentist decided to fill one of them before recommending that I get all of them pulled. Ummm… what? Why would you charge me to get a filling in a tooth that you are now recommending I get yanked out of my skull? What is this? Russia?
4. They’re terrible about setting up appointments. They wanted to send me to a specialist at a different Gentle Dental office but couldn’t seem to get me down in the books for an appointment despite several attempts by me to do so. Almost a year later, I still haven’t seen the specialist because they can’t get their scheduling in order.
I could probably go on, but my own negativity is exhausting at this point. If you have an HMO, you probably won’t find a great dentist anywhere in the city anyway. So if you have to come to this office, just be hyper-​aware of what papers you are signing and be proactive about following up with them regarding appointments and such.

I have seen more advanced, better offices in third world countries! I would never go here again not to mention their name is very misleading. Plus they wanted to do things I didn’t need just to get money!

I have been going to this Gentle Dental office for a number of years, back to when Dr. Yep was there.
Yes, I’ve read the many negative reviews and some comments are still relevant, although they recently painted the interior. That helped. It would be good if they put in some new attractive and comfortable furniture in the upstairs waiting room.
Receptionists Jhoan and Yancy are quite efficient and very pleasant.
Upstairs, Dental Assistant Amy is amiable and personable.
I have full confidence in Fariba Fourizan, DDS.
Dr. Forouzan is a very lovely lady — quiet, soft-​spoken, caring, considerate, diligent. A perfectionist.
Dr. Forouzan has successfully done procedures for me that are apparently not attempted by many dentists these days.
Because of this staff I highly recommend this office
Limited on-​site parting is a plus.

My opinion of Gentle Dental is that they are doing some serious scamming to make up for the fact that they are paid low rates for services through being a part of a dental HMO. Is this something you even want to consider with the future health of your teeth? You’d have to be crazy.
Several months ago I went to Gentle Dental in SF. After a 2 minute cleaning, they said I needed 6 crowns and 1 filling. The cost of this with my HMO coverage would be $ 3000. Without coverage it would have been $ 12,000.
I was very suspicious, since my cleaning with another dentist 6 months ago revealed none of this, so I looked at Gentle Dental on Unilocal.All one star reviews of people being overworked on, overcharged, and having issues. That was enough for me to seek out a second opinion, even if I had to come out of pocket.
I asked them for a copy of xrays, and it took them over a month to get them to me. I called twice a week and sent emails as well. They made excuses every time, until I threatened them with legal action and a copy of the law that says I must receive a copy of my records within 30 days of asking. I finally got the copies.
I sought out another dentist through friend’s recommendations… and made sure to look him up on Unilocal before visiting!
He gave me a free exam and told me he would only recommend replacing two fillings that were compromised, and that 6 crowns would be invasive and not recommended at all. He said that the general view of dentistry these days is to not do preventitive crown work «just because», because it is known that invasive work and loss of a lot of tooth material can lead to further issues down the road. There are a lot of nerves and capilaries there and keeping as much of your natural tooth as possible in your mouth is the most effective barrier against diseases of the mouth and immune system.
Cost of getting two fillings replaced will be $ 700 outside of insurance. MUCH BETTER.
It terrifies me to think that Gentle Dental wanted to do 6 crowns!!! WTF?
Moral of the story: Get a second opinion, its always worth it. And don’t let just anybody in your mouth.

Don’t do it!!! I was so horrified by the condition of the office I wouldn’t let them touch my mouth! The office looks as if it hasn’t been cleaned in as long as I’ve been alive. We’re talking open closets with buckets of chemicals, chipping paint and stained walls.
Oh and the consultation recommended many expensive procedures, I find this irrelevant because I wouldn’t have so much as let them clean my teeth let alone do anything further.
Do yourself a favor and find somewhere else!

Creepy and awful– from the equipment to the staff. I came in for a regular 6-​month check-​up/​cleaning but was in the chair for 45 minutes before I finally started asking when the cleaning was going to start – I had only budgeted an hour and needed to get to work. It turns out they were still «checking on my insurance» (?!? — they’d already done so when I called weeks ahead to make the appointment).
Then right before the cleaning they asked for my signature on several procedures that I hadn’t asked for – medication for each side of my mouth (which wasn’t in pain) and a couple of other things I didn’t want. Even if I didn’t have to pay much because my insurance was covering it, I had already said No. The doctor also tried to upsell me on teeth whitening and was somewhat insulting about it.
Never ever again, even if they are just two blocks from my house.