Dentist Appointment cancellation fees

[mac2lrk]

I missed an appointment with the hygenist at the dentists yesterday, ( I have flu and have lost my voice!) and completely forgot about it.

Today, they have sent me a letter stating they are going to charge me £36.15 as a cancellation fee. I phoned them up today and with great difficulty in a whispered voice explained I wouldn't be paying this fee as they had never informed me of their cancellation fee schedule. The receptionist told me it was on the appointment card. I told them that I never recieved an appointment card as I made the appointment in the surgery and put the info in my phone. I have been told they are referring this to the partners!

Can they refuse to see me in future? I am a paying customer not NHS, and feel their cancellation fees are unfair as I have not been informed of this, and also there was a genuine reason for not attending, and I have never missed an appointment before.

[sir_gilmour]

Hello mac2lrk, welcome to the CAG.

 

Enjoy your visit, but take some time to look around the forum and understand where everything is.

 

 

It can seem confusing at first but you will start to find your way round and to understand what a helpful community we are.

 

You haven't received any replies to your post yet. Try posting your query again in a relevant sub-foum. You will get the help and support you need there.

[Night Owl]

PreentypepVep your post has been reported for breaking forum rules.

 

This is a Consumer Forum that helps consumers with Consumer issues.

 

Your post will be removed.

[Night Owl]

Hi mac,

 

you have entered into a contract of dental work to be done so you will be fined for not attending an appointment.

 

If you were ill up to an appointment you should postpone the appointment.

 

You put the appointment on your mobile so you could have got someone else to cancel or postpone it on your behalf.

[rebel11]

Thread moved to the correct forum.

[nolegion]

Hi mac2. Don’t be discouraged. This is in fact a helpful and supporting forum, as sir_gilmour said. It certainly very significantly helped my family with a major issue earlier this year.

 

'Fining’ is exactly what a dentists’ practice CANNOT do. It needs to establish its right to make the charge on specific contractual grounds, and it’s not clear from what you have said that those grounds necessarily exist.

 

They are highly unlikely to ‘sue’ for such an amount, though they can always ask you to ‘move on’.

 

Taking a flying guess ‘referral to the partners’ may be just what you need. The officious behaviour of some clerical staff in medicine is too well known - and too sickening - to need further characterisation from me.

 

If they stick to their guns you may be better off elsewhere in any event, if that is possible for you. I would certainly be reluctant to stay with a practice which had no sympathy for the apologetic and ill.

 

Best of luck and get well soon. Flu can be the very devil to‘shake off’.