Dr. Ira Newman, DDS

I had trusted Dr. Newman for years before I found out later he only saw me as an income opportunity. It started with one missing front tooth. He suggested a "bridge" which required grinding down the teeth on either side of the missing tooth and putting crowns on these with a "ponic" or dummy tooth in between. This lasted about six months. We're talking about the biting teeth here and a bridge of this kind is not the best strategy. I returned after the six month with the bridge failing. He next suggest "abutments" or posts to connect the bridge to my now ground down teeth. The posts worked like re-bar in buildings, metal rods running from the crowns of the bridge down into the teeth. These lasted maybe three months when biting into a bagel they bent outward. I looked like an extreme buck toothed hillbilly. These posts cost six hundred dollars each. "You shouldn't have been eating bagels" he told me. "You should take it easy on these teeth." I said, "bagels!? seriously?"… We start again with new crowns but first he tells me the only answer is to do root canals and deep seated abutments - or some such nonsense as this, it's been over a year and I am trying to be accurate as I can here. He did root canals on both of my front teeth on either side of the missing tooth. New molds of my teeth (which feels like he is pulling all the teeth out at once) were needed as they are each time he replaced the crowns. I now have a grand smile, like I did in the beginning. Two root canals, two custom abutments that cost three times a standard abutment (metal post) and a ponic. We're now at a cost to me more than $15K! This lasted almost a year, not quite. Newman shrugs and says "oh, well. I guess we'll have to do implants." "Implants?" I ask. " Why didn't we go that route first? He goes over a bunch of dentistry with me and explains it is best if I get all my upper teeth (where the problems are) extracted and get a full set of upper implants. He tells me he never did this and would be interesting to participate in one such procedure. "All of the uppers?" I ask. He replies, "Yeah, we call it "teeth-in-a-day." all done in one sitting." How much? was all my weary head could come up with. Altogether, about $35K I almost pass out. After much convincing and a good bit of salesmanship, I relent and agree to the procedure. I tell him I have a long awaited vacation in Italy coming up and wanted to wait until after - just in case. He assures me there will be no problems. I again agree and he starts the procedure. He starts with the molds again. That dentist took so many molds of my teeth, it gave him a wholesale rate on the clay. He charged me $3,250 for the temporaries until the implants took and they could put the permanent crowns in. At this point my wife, a CPA, came to my defense. She suggested I get a second opinion - I did with her dentist. His eyes went wide when I told him my story. Why do you want to remove 5, possibly 6 good teeth to put implants in? Suddenly everything fell into perspective. I said how Newman had wanted experience in such a procedure of "teeth-in-a-day" and this second dentist closed his eyes tight to avoid making bad statements about a professional colleague but the look was apparent. I went back to Newman and told him I didn't want to do the whole mouth. Okay, he submits. I go to Italy the next week and sure enough,the first week there the temporaries fail. I spent that day climbing up a mountain looking for a dentist to re-insert my temporaries as I now looked worse than a hill billy, I looked like a broken down prize fighter. Language problems and a rural dentist that was amazed at seeing first hand implant work as he did nothing but extractions, fillings and dentures and after 150 Euros (approx. $200) my expensive temporaries were back in. Three days later the fell out again as these were not the correct temporaries. I spent the rest of my long awaited vacation in Italy without front teeth. I later found out that when I changed my mind and he did not extract my upper teeth for replacement with implants that the temporaries were not correct as they were for a full set of uppers and had no support unless full and together. Front teeth temporaries require some kind of support as they do the job of biting off. He did not want to through them out and give me the correct ones, even if he charged me. Instead, he insisted on charging me the full amount of the ten temporaries and only use the three for my front. He told me the other temps would be there when and if I decided to complete the procedure. He was obviously very disappointed in not being able to do a teeth-in-a-day procedure. I had to sue to get my refund and even then he hated parting with my money. Total: Over $40,000 to correct the problem of one front tooth that needed a simple implant in the beginning to solve instead Newman worked every tooth around it. I trusted this dentist and his professional opinion. He saw me as a long term income with each step detailed here figured in his plan. He made it clear that his office was a business and therefore "caveat emptor, " When I filed a complaint with the board of professional ethics they agreed with me in part. They forced him to refund my charges for the incorrect implant. I had wanted more as he took out teeth that weren't needed to be removed as they were healthy but Dr. Newman saw that he could use them make a bridge, then root canals and the rest, each step planned by him as he knew each had a life span that would end and would need more work which meant more money. As they used to say about used car dealers, "He saw you coming" he did see me coming - coming with a credit card and a trusting attitude. If we can't trust medical professionals to the point of "caveat emptor" something is very wrong somewhere.