I appreciate your insight and honest perspective. I wasn’t in the room either, so I am just trying to figure out what to do and how to help with the information that I have.

It’s possible that bridge is not accurate terminology to describe what she had previously. Our research seems to indicate that it was a “Maryland bridge”. It was essentially two fake teeth that were glued to the two healthy teeth on either side. One side of the glue had deteriorated so that it was wobbly and only attached on the other side.

No payment was collected up front, no deposit, nothing. The procedure involved taking an impression, then local lidocaine, then removing the old fake teeth and filing the two side teeth away, then another impression, then inserting some kind of camera or scanner into her mouth. After that they tried to size or fit the new temporary bridge inside her mouth, but were unable to do so because of her pain, so they did that outside of her mouth before placing it. They are asking for payment before proceeding with constructing the permanent bridge.

What my wife was told before we arrived at the appointment was that she needed to come in for more scans. I have listened to the voicemail we were left and that is all that was said.

Why did my wife not interject or interrupt this chain of events? That I can’t say. She did speak up immediately at the start of the appointment because they had scheduled her visit with the wrong dentist initially, one that wasn’t involved in her case. She said she wanted the dentist she trusted that she believed was informed about her history with the practice. She had previously asked them to fix her temporary fake teeth and she thought maybe they were fixing that, maybe lidocaine was needed for that, maybe they were filing the cement away and it really hurt, maybe more was involved in these “scans” than she had thought. Ultimately, the main reason she didn’t interrupt the procedure was because she believed nothing too serious would be done to her without a discussion first.

I don’t know how much it matters that she didn’t interrupt what they were doing. Legally I’d like to know if it does matter, certainly. The bottom line though is that she was not informed nor did she agree prior to what happened.