Santa Cruz Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery - Santa Cruz, California

Claire A.

Staff was overall fairly nice and the doctor was great. Went in to get a consult about removing my wisdom teeth.

Scheduling - gave me an antibiotic and acted like it was going to be a week out or so, it was over a month later than they scheduled me and I wound up having to cancel due to me moving.

Autism - I had asked on the phone if they had experience working with peope with ASD however when I brought it up to the nurse I was compared with autistic children and basically dismissed when I asked about my partner being with me due to not wanting to freak out coming out of anesthesia. They don't seem exspered with autistic adults if that's how it's handled. I felt very infantalized in how I was spoken too by the nurse.

EDIT - Got my wisdom teeth removed two months after the appointment above, The Dr. At this practice made it out like my surgery would be complicated and long even had me do an extra MRI to check on a nerve around my wisdom teeth in addition to my X-Ray(causing an additonal supprise expense). When I finally got them out, not only did my Dr. assure me that my extractions wouldn't be difficult as 3 of the 4 were able to be pulled but did my procedure in less than 30 minutes. The Dr. In Santa Cruz told me that wasn't possible and that it wouldn't be safe to pull out my grown in wisdom teeth.

T V.

Worst experience I've had in a long time. Staff was rude, especially the manager, alma. All dr cheng cares about is how much money he can collect for a given procedure. he has 0 bedside manner. It's $1500 more to extract a tooth. $3000 to extract. Unfortunately I've had many a dental procedure with different doctors and this was by far the worst all around.

Matt B.

The staff here are amazing and extremely straightforward about costs.
As far as treatment, Doctor was consistent in what I needed to do and staff were very clear and caring on aftercare.
Great experience that for me could’ve been otherwise scary as I’ve never been “put under” before. Super reassuring and awesome. I highly recommend.
Im about 9 hours out from surgery and have zero pain from a major molar extraction.
Very grateful, thank you so much Doctor and staff!

Vicky

I was referred here by my dentist for a routine procedure and didn’t think too much about it. I set up an initial consultation appointment as instructed by my dentist but then saw all of the negative reviews stating that this practice was a money grab and not interested in providing high quality care. I decided to not risk my health and instead look at other providers in the area.

I called to cancel the appointment but they did not pick up the first few times I tried. I finally got someone on the line and I let her know I needed to cancel an appointment but soon after I heard her put the phone back into the receiver and the call was disconnected. I figured that I tried my best to cancel but couldn’t after numerous attempts.

After the time of my scheduled appointment they called to inform me that I am on the hook for a cancellation fee which had never been disclosed prior…. I’m glad I saw the negative reviews about this practice operating purely to get money out of patients because that was my experience as well. I would rather have peace of mind when it comes to any type of surgery. And I don’t know who wouldn’t!

Abhishake B.

Dr. TJ Zadeh is an exceptional person and surgeon. He delivers his care so compassionately that he has earned my confidence and trust to send him my family members and friends. He is a true expert and his bedside manner is exemplary. His surgery results speak for themselves and I have had nothing but great oral surgery experiences with tooth removals and implants. His calm and caring demeanor are perfect for anxious people and his sedations were amazing with no complications. I can’t recommend Dr. TJ and Santa Cruz Oral Surgery enough.

Ivona H.

ZERO STARS. Dr Cheng’s office and most of his his staff is interested in money and money only.
Overall, they were never transparent about the fees they were charging, making the business shady and dishonest.

My story: A year ago, I had a referral for extractions for my young child. The process and billing was very unclear. I had to constantly ask for detailed billing. When I received the estimate the price for baby teeth extraction shocked me. I called my insurance company where THEY reveled that the estimate was made for wisdom teeth, not baby teeth. I called the Oral Surgery office again and they simply said they made a mistake in the billing code. Mistake worth approx $2000…!!

Fast forward a year. My other child needed to have the same procedure done on baby teeth so I made a mistake and went with the same office. Again, I had to ask for detailed billing. They presented 3 pages to sign but only gave me one page with no details. Only after I asked for it they reluctantly printed the rest for me. Turns out the details from the 4 plus pages of forms you fill out online don’t get included for billing. After I did some research and many phone calls later I learned they wanted to charge more than necessary. Another mistake?
Again - they were hoping the patient doesn’t read the fine print and blindly pays…
I was advised by my insurance company to ask the Oral Surgery office for one document. A person from billing dept promised to submit this document promptly. Long 3 weeks later, many phone calls back and forth, I had to have a conference call done with witnesses from insurance company for her to finally submit what was necessary. She was stalling for 3 full weeks getting closer to my original appointment date. In the meantime, I had to postpone the date of the surgery full 7 weeks for the approval process to be complete.
Now fast forward another 7 weeks later, I received an additional bill. Another bureaucracy dance… After 32 minutes on hold I was promised she’d call me back. Let’s see, is she waiting until my bill is due…. Let’s dance!

Lori A.

Drove my daughter over an hour to get there and was late 5 minutes due to construction. They canceled the appointment when I was driving there. If you tell people the appointment is at a certain time then you should also include paperwork time in that time frame. Will not be taking my other child there either.

Daylamuertos

Just this week I got all four of my wisdom teeth out here. And while the staff was rather kind, I was made to lay on the table for legitimately over an hour, with blood pressure monitor, heart rate monitor, oxygen mask on me and tools on top of me, waiting for Dr. Cheng to do the surgery. I could move past this but the worst part is that I made my wishes known that I would like to keep my wisdom teeth after they where removed, I reminded them at every preliminary appointment, as well as before the surgery started. Now three days later, after multiple phone calls and visits to the office it was revealed that they where just thrown away immediately after surgery. I am beyond upset about this. There seems to be a big lack of communication between the front desk and the dentists because I was told that my teeth where in multiple different places, and in a bag specifically marked ‘do not throw away’. This has definitely made my whole recovery from this surgery more stressful and left a bad taste in my mouth, literally and metaphorically.