Orthodontic fee agreement

[mon_loz]

My mother signed a contract to have my brother get braces. An estimate of the procedure was made and a monthly installment was specified for her to pay. In order for any procedure to start X-rays needed to be perform first. The X-rays were never done nor any other procedure but they are billing us for penalty fees due to breach of contract. The contract only indicated that treatment fees would be based on the number of months of treatment but treatment never took place. Now they are charging us for about 6 months of penalty fees for each of those months that my brother did not go. The $75 dollars each month that we were charge were per month the patient has been in appliances/bands. How can I be charge this when bands were never done or any appliances procedures?

You could fight that in small claims. They are entitled to reasonable fees if they incurred costs etc. and then she backed out...if that is what happened.

[mon_loz]

Thanks. I went but the mgr was not there to do anything. The receptioist/dental assitance was making it seem as if I'd owe. The contract was also written wrong. In the begining of the agreement it had my mother's name as the patient and then at the end of the agreement it had my brothers name. The patient is my brother, but because they also filled it out the contract wrong does that make it valid? Also my mother believed this was an estimate not a contract which they did not explain to her and told her to her sign it in order for them to stay with that estimate. The dental office deals with many hispanic people and the community there is pretty much spanish speaking who do not speak english or read english. Do they also not need to give them a contract for them to understand? The truth is that I believe this place is some what shade. To tell you the truth that is totally a different and long story maybe that is why I don't want my family to get involved there at all.

[mon_loz]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

You could fight that in small claims. They are entitled to reasonable fees if they incurred costs etc. and then she backed out...if that is what happened.

They seemed to have droped the agreement at first because they did not want problems when I went with my brother who is the patient. But now they want to speak with my mother and she wants me to go with her but they said I was not allowed since this is private patient information. She told them that she gave me permission to go her but they still refuse to allow me to accompany her. They told her that they wanted to explain the agreement in spanish for her. But we don't even want to have the treatment there anymore. What can I do? If the agreement was not filled out correct is it still valid? Can they sent us to collections for this?

Anybody can go with her if she agrees.