Joseph Roth · 2 out of 5 stars · 3 months ago
Another update: Dr. Lao sent me an email apologizing for the experience, but unfortunately it is very clearly written by ChatGPT/similar AI. Even their apologies are insincere. Updating the review after a phone call from Dr. Jahnsen, the practice owner: Dr. Jahnsen, the practice owner, called me several hours after my appointment to gain a better understanding of my experience. She offered to have me come back into the office so that she can give me a second opinion. However, several minutes into the call, it became abundantly clear why she actually called. She wanted me to remove/soften my review (which the office asked me to do) and to defend her staff member. As a result, I’m no longer a patient at Boston Smiles. Unfortunately, her leadership style and poor conflict resolution skills caused a follow-up call to turn into a worse review and a lost patient. Original review, unedited: I had an unpleasant experience with Dr. Lao. He was very informal, asking me if I “had anything to complain about,” rather than a standard line of questioning like “do you have any pain, discomfort, or any other problems with [my] teeth or gums?” He spoke with quite a bit of jargon and would ask “if that made sense,” if I said no not really, he would quickly explain and move on. After 30 seconds of examination, he exclaimed that I needed to get teeth pulled immediately—something Dr. Cheng, from my previous visit, told me was not an emergent issue and we could keep an eye on it over the next several visits. When I informed Dr. Lao about Dr. Cheng’s assessment and asserted I’d had X-Rays taken, he dismissed it, and insisted his own assessment was correct. Overall, Dr. Lao’s communication style and unwillingness to consider previous information made the visit unpleasant. That being said, the other staff, hygienists, and Dr. Cheng (at my last visit) are all quite pleasant, and Boston Smiles is a nice, clean, and reasonably well-run dentist office. My rating and displeasure primarily reflects my interaction with Dr. Lao, not Boston Smiles.





