Smiles On Calumet

Everyone at Smiles On Calumet were so friendly. I had Kaitlyn as my hygienist & she was very thoughtful & explained things throughout the X-rays & cleaning. The Dentist came in , introduced himself & thanked me for giving the office a try since I was a new patient & did my exam .
I was very impressed with the way the entire team flowed together .
I’m definitely going back to Smiles On Calumet because I’ve never had such a great dental experience as I did today with the entire dental team and Dr. Machak .
Thank you all so very much !

If I could give a negative number i would! I worked at a dental office for almost 5 years so this is all not new to me, but moving and change of jobs left me looking for a new office/dentist. Went in for a cleaning and new pt. exam, I trusted their knowledge on my teeth and next steps to take. Next thing you know I have a $10K treatment plan and they refused to allow me to set up a cleaning. I went to 2 other doctors to get a second and third opinion- neither of these doctors saw what smiles indicated I had- no bone loss, only one cavity, only a few pockets above a 4- and to top it off after 5 attempts to bill insurance (which i do for a living) they stated my insurance was in active, which was not true. Instead of figuring out the insurance billing they just sent me to collections. 10/10 DO NOT RECOMMEND- THEY ARE JUST LOOKING FOR $$$ Also the manager who handles upset pts does nothing but make up lies and excuses. I know the law.... good try though. DO NOT GO TO THIS OFFICE.

There was not a single point of dissatisfaction. I had my tooth extracted on 0/02/2023. The Doctor was extremely kind to me. I would heartily recommend him to anyone in need of dental problems. His assistant was a soft-spoken kindly lady.

I was pleasantly surprised by the genuine friendliness of the staff. Everyone was professionally warm. I was not overwhelmed with options and finance plans, but rather straight forward explanations of their findings and plans for resolution. Nothing was forced on me, but rather my concurrence was sought on every suggestion.

From someone who doesn’t enjoy dentists visits— this place is awesome. It’s clean, it smells good, everyone is very professional and friendly. I have massive anxiety about going to the dentist and they managed to keep me calm and comfortable all through my procedures. 10/10 would recommend.

What a fabulous place!! From Adam who greeted me and took my deets and assisted Dr, to Katlyn who took A Lot of X-rays and checked to see how healthy my gums are (they are Very healthy!), to the lady who numbed my mouth (I’m sorry! can’t remember your name), to Dr Tom who took care of extractions and bone grafts, my experience here was awesome!
They gave me a game plan for the work Dr suggested. I wanted to get some of the work done before end of year to maximize what my insurance covered. They actually were able to do the extractions the same day!
Completely exceeded any expectations I had, Awesome people.

DO NOT RECOMMEND. Completely wasted my time, which is so unprofessional. Poor communication. I’m new to the area and needed to establish a dental clinic so I picked this place because they had the earliest appointment. I worked around my work schedule and took time off for this appointment. My appointment was today, 10/31. They sent me a text message on Friday 10/28 at 8:42am and expected me to confirm this appt before noon even though that was not specified in the initial text message. I confirmed at 2:28pm, and they still canceled my appointment, which I wasn’t aware of until I went in for my appointment. The receptionist told me it was in their new patient documents that It was a requirement to confirm. I’m not sure if it’s common for them to only give patients a 3 hours window to confirm appts?

1. I got a new number and while my old phone is still active for another month, I went into the office to complete new patient paperwork on 10/24 and provided my new phone number. What is the point of providing all this information and providing my new number for them to update it when they still didn’t bother to update my info. They had a whole week to update my number and still didn’t.

2. They then sent another text message to my old phone today at 7:35AM, which I didn’t see, stating that the appointment was canceled. Still never bothered to update my phone number.

I decided not to make another appointment and decided to go else where. My suggestion is for the employees to update patient information when we provide that information in advance already and send text message confirmation and reminders to the correct phone numbers. I’ve never experienced this before with the dental clinics where I used to live where they would just never update your phone number, give you such a short window to confirm and just cancel your appointment and then give you a super short notice again the day of.

Incredibly offensive.
I had brought my nine and a half year old son in for a check up and cleaning. He was found to have two cavities along with plaque and tartar buildup on his teeth, though we brush twice a day every day. I wasn’t greeted or introduced to the dentist when I went back to get the check up results. I was was demanded by the dentist himself that I need to hover over my son while he is brushing or do it for him myself. The dentist used a very condescending tone when he looked me in the eye and said, “Be a parent and get it done.” I would love to be the parent. In fact, I just finalized the adoption on this child and now I GET to be the parent and make these decisions for and with my child. It was extremely hurtful to be told that I haven’t been a parent to my son. The dentist then went on to insult my child’s ability to care for his body in front of my child saying, “He doesn’t have the dexterity to do it himself.” Though I was offended and hurt I joking said, “Well our family just has bad teeth.” Even though my son is not biologically mine I like to refer to him as if he is. In another condescending tone, he told me that his teeth have nothing to do with his genetics. I’m not a dentist but I am sure he did not look at his chart or he would have realized that my son was born addicted to his birth mothers drug and alcohol use. According to the following article:

Prenatal Substance Use Disorders and Dental Caries in Children
N Auger et al. J Dent Res. 2020 Apr:

Children exposed to maternal substance use had a higher incidence of hospitalization for dental caries than unexposed children (105.2 vs. 27.0 per 10,000 person-years). Maternal substance use was associated with 1.96 times the risk of childhood dental caries (95% CI, 1.80-2.14), including a greater risk of caries of enamel, dentin, or cementum (HR, 2.00; 95% CI, 1.82-2.19) and dental pulp (HR, 2.36; 95% CI, 2.07-2.70), relative to no substance use.

Again I am not a dentist so I cannot confirm if my child has increased dental issues from being born addicted but I have read a few articles saying that it would. I do know that I was offended and that demanding someone to, “Be a parent.” Whether the child is biologically related or adopted is not the right way to ask for a task to be done. I would have been much more open to conversation to give him the details of my my new sons past had the dentist said, “For a few months please monitor his brushing and assist him until he gets the hang of it.” Or perhaps give me more information on how to care for the teeth of a child who was born addicted and could be prone to more dental problems.

This behavior needs to change. Both my son and I left feeling uncomfortable, upset and offended. We will not be returning.

Very professional and courteous. I was especially grateful how mindful and sensitive the dentist and staff were to my anxiety.

The employees at Smiles on Calumet are very friendly. My daughter had to get quite a few fillings and they were always quick and did a wonderful job!