Nuvia Dental Implant Center review: Dental implants

Last summer, 2023, I spent multiple hours on calls with representatives of Nuvia inquiring about all on 4 dental implants in a week. The closest office to me is in Alexandria, VA, 5 hours away. In my town there is an Aspen Dental and an hour away there is a Clear Choice. I went into Aspen Dental for a free consultation and they told me that they could do full mouth implants but it would take 6 months to a year. I contacted Nuvia because having them done in a week appealed more to me, of course. I was missing more than 8 teeth and had 3 anchors in my mouth already. I told the lady I spoke with at Nuvia all of this. She mentioned something about bone density and how that could affect whether or not the implants could be done in a week. I told her that the only reason I would travel to Alexandria is if I could have them done in a week. She said if I would get 360 degree xrays from my dentist and any scans from my oral surgeon from where I had multiple teeth removed and the anchors placed she would be able to show them to the Nuvia surgery team and they would be able to tell me with certainty whether bone density/loss was a factor. I sent all of the requested images and she called me back and said that the surgeons said everything looked great and that I was a candidate for the all on 4 implants in a week. The next step of course was to make sure I would qualify for financing as it would cost $46,000. My husband had to do the financing and was approved. We scheduled the procedure for August 2023. I was told Monday would I would have scans done, pick out the shape and color, meet with the dentist and of course sign all of the paperwork for the financing; Tuesday I would arrive at 6am for surgery to remove all of my remaining teeth and place the 4 anchors on the top and the bottom; Wednesday would be a day of rest post surgery; Thursday I would go in for my permanent teeth to be put in and Friday I would go back in to have them checked before leaving for home. One week, everything done. We had to stay in a hotel because, as I stated, we live 5 hours away. I went in Monday and everything went as it was explained. Tuesday I arrived and went into surgery and when I came out my husband and I were told that they had to do a bone graft on my bottom jaw but they were able to put the anchors in my top jaw. My husband asked what that meant for the bottom jaw and the implants, because I was out of it from surgery, and he was told that the bone graft would take around 4-6 months to be strong enough for the implants. He was also told that when I come back in the 4-6 months the bone graft may not be completely healed yet and that I may have to wait a few more months. I rested on Wednesday and went back into the office on Thursday. The implants they put in the top were made of denture material. Friday I went back in and they fit my bottom jaw with a removable denture. First of all, my mouth was so swollen that the dentures were fitted to my gums that would eventually shrink down, making them not fit. Second, to fit the bottom denture they had to take a mold of my gum which was still raw from surgery and was extremely painful when they pushed the mold down onto my jaw. So painful that I was in tears. We left Virginia that day with nothing that I was promised would happen. Within 2 weeks the swelling on my bottom gums had gone down and as expected the dentures didn't fit. I received a call from Shanaya in the Alexandria office to see how everything was going and I told her that I couldn't eat a lot of things because I had no bottom teeth. She asked me why and I had to explain again that the dentures did not fit. She said "you can come by anytime and we can refit them." I had to remind her that we live 5 hours away and I can't just "come by." They scheduled an appointment for me January 12, 2024 at 8am and 4pm which was to be my 4-month Reline appointment. I messaged Shanaya on December 25th to reschedule that appointment as my husband and I couldn't take the days off to travel up to Virginia. I was scheduled for Friday February 9th. The Reline would be at 8am and pickup time would be at 4pm. I questioned the zirconium teeth and when I would be getting those. She said that "typically during your Reline appointment your teeth will be sent to our lab in the morning and you'll pick them back up the very same day in the afternoon. If a new prosthetic is needed then it may be possible that you would have to come back in another day but unfortunately your doctor wouldn't be able to tell until she sees you in person." I understood. My husband and I took off of work Thursday February 8th to drive to Virginia to be able to be at the office at 8am on Friday the 9th. Around 1pm on Thursday I received a call from Shanaya stating that my doctor wouldn't be in the next day so they would have to reschedule and wanted to see if we could come in the following week. I had to remind her AGAIN that we live 5 hours away and have to plan ahead of time to make the trip. We were not happy about this. We had to take days off of work. We rescheduled for the 28th of March. By this time we were going on 7 months with no bottom teeth. Once again my husband and I were not able to take the time off of work so I had to cancel the March appointment. There were no Fridays in April that they had available that we could go up. I called the office at the beginning of May and spoke with Shanaya. My question to her was "you know we live 5 hours away so is it possible that I could come up there for the few days to have done what I need to have done so I don't have to come back again?" Shanaya said that she would ask the surgeon and let me know. I texted her on May 10th that I hadn't heard from her regarding our conversation and if she would please let me know what the doctor said. She responded the same day "Good morning Ms. Lisa! We sincerely apologize for the delay. Our office has actually been closed since Wednesday, and is also closed today as our doctors are out of town for training. My GM is aware that you require a call back and will be speaking with the doctors next week once they are back in the office. We truly appreciate your patience and value you as a Nuvia patient. We will definitely be in touch with you soon. Reply STOP to unsubscribe." So except for the "Good morning Ms. Lisa!" it was a blanket generated text. On Tuesday May 14th at 9:32am I sent Shanaya another text "Good morning. Just checking in to see if you were able to talk to your GM and the doctors about having everything done in one trip." She immediately responded "Good morning Ms. Lisa! We're so sorry to keep you waiting. We have not forgotten about you at all. There's been a lot of changes in our lab due to our extremely short staff, so we are still coordinating a great date for you. I promise we will be in touch as soon as we can." Wednesday the 15th I received a text from Shanaya "Hi Ms. Lisa! We were able to coordinate a week to have you come in. Our surgeon is able to see you the week of June 3rd. We would first need you to come in on June 3 at 10am for a CBCT scan. You would then come back Tuesday June 4 at 11am for your uncovering appointment. Your surgeon would like you to have a day of recovery and then come back into the office on Thursday, June 6 for your smile delivery. Please let us know if you would be able to make it in that week." I had a death in my family and wasn't able to do that week so Shanaya said I could come in the week of June 17. She said "6/17 at 10am for a scan. You would then have surgery at 10:30am on 6/18 and come back on 6/20 for your delivery." It was finally scheduled and we planned to take the week off of work and come up to Virginia on June 16th to be there for my morning appointment on June 17th. The morning of June 17th we arrived at the office at 9:45am and I was taken back for my scan at 10:15am. I was out of the office by 10:30am. I was finally excited thinking that things were going to go well that week. We arrived on Tuesday June 18th at 10:20am for my 10:30am uncovering appointment. I wasn't called back until 12 noon. I had been asked when the appointment was made if I wanted anesthesia for my uncovering or just a local. I chose local because it would be much quicker. I was given the Novocain injections immediately and was completely numb within 15 minutes. The doctor came in and did the uncovering. The process, once I was numb, took less than 20 minutes. I was again feeling positive, even though it was 2 hours past my appointment time, since what I was scheduled to have done that day was already done. The nurse said that the "other doctor" would be in shortly to check to make sure everything looked good. So, it's now around 12:40pm. I dozed off and woke back up at around 1:15pm. I got up and looked out the door and a nurse said "Is everything ok? Can I get you something?" I said "No, I'm just waiting for the doctor to come in and check the uncovering I had done." She said "He should be in shortly." I asked her to let my husband, who had been in the waiting room since we got there at 10:20am, what was happening. She said she would. I laid back down in the chair and dozed off again. I woke up and it was then 2:30pm. I again stood up and looked out the door to see if I could find someone and the same nurse from earlier said "Hey! Can I get you something? Would you like a popsicle?" I said "no I don't want a popsicle, I want to know what's going on." She said "Well... You want me to be honest with you?" Seriously? "Yes," I said "that would be great." She said "ok, well, one of the doctor's, your doctor specifically, didn't come in today so we only have one doctor seeing all of the patients today so..." I said "So... what does that mean exactly?" "Well, I don't know how long it's going to be before he gets to you." "Well, I haven't eaten anything since last night because I was told I couldn't eat anything for my procedure today. I had Novocaine but that's beside the point. I have been here since 10:20am and all he has to do is come in and look to see if the uncovering 'looks ok'. Did you tell my husband what's happening?" "I can get you a popsicle" she said "and I will go tell your husband now." She hadn't told him anything earlier when I asked her to. I told her I didn't want a popsicle. She left the room and closed the door behind her this time. The doctor finally came in at 5:30pm. I asked if my husband had been updated because I was surprised he hadn't asked to come back there. He had in fact NOT been updated at all, the entire time I was back there. He had asked the receptionist and she said she would find out what was going on and never did. He hadn't eaten all day and was sitting in the waiting area the entire time. The doctor apologized for the delay and I asked why he couldn't have just come in and looked to see if everything was ok. He said "That's not all that you're having done today." That's all I was told that I was having done, by Shanaya when I made the appointments, by the nurse on Monday when I got my scan done and by the doctor who did the actual uncovering. The doctor proceeded to put the anchors in and then a mold of the bottom teeth in my mouth. He filled under the mold with epoxy to fit it to my gums. he waited for the epoxy to set and went to remove it. It wouldn't come off. Next thing I know he is cutting and sawing and yanking on it. He never said a word. He said nothing for an hour as he was cutting the mold into pieces and removing it bit by bit. He was pressing so hard on my jaw for leverage that tears were pouring out of my eyes. The nurse had the nerve to keep asking me "are you ok?" and saying "I'm sorry." It was excruciatingly painful. My neck was hurting along with my head and of course my jaw and behind both ears where my jaw opens and closes. When he pulled the last piece out he finally said "the anchors that we used on you we don't use anymore because they have a tiny lip at the base. The epoxy dried around it and I couldn't pull the mold off. I had to cut it away. Sorry." The office was now closed of course and I asked where my husband was. The nurse said that he was probably still in the waiting area. I asked if he could come back there and she said no, that there was nowhere for him to sit (there were 2 chairs in the room). The doctor had left the room to make a new mold and came back with it. He put it in, handed me a mirror and asked me what I thought. They were awful. They felt like a mouthguard, big and bulky and not normal teethlike at all. I asked again if my husband could come back there, that I wanted his opinion. He walked in and I was crying. Of course he immediately asked what was going on. The doctor explained what had happened but that the teeth that were in there now were the final ones. I said "no, the top ones are temporary." The doctor asked me "what makes you say that?" I said "Ummmm because the permanent ones I was promised and agreed to pay for way back in August are supposed to be zirconia." He said "Oh. Well." I said "These top ones I have now are made out of a denture like material and are in no way $46,000 teeth." He said "well, I don't know if we can have your permanent teeth done by Thursday since you're changing the material." My husband was now not happy either and said "wait a minute, we were told when I signed the agreement to pay you $46,000 that the teeth would be zirconia, we are NOT changing the material, you're trying to not give us what we are paying for." I said "and they look horrible." I was beyond angry at this point and just wanted what I had been promised from day one and as of that moment I hadn't gotten one thing I was supposed to get. The bottom teeth looked horribly fake and bulged out, pushing my bottom lip out unnaturally far. The doctor tried to say that they were as far out as my original, natural teeth had been (he had never seen me before except the pictures they took of me back in August) which was not true, I think I knew better than he did. He went back and filed them down twice and brought them back twice and they weren't any better. I finally said "I guess they're better than not having any bottom teeth like I have had for the last 10 months." It was now 8:30pm. We had been there 10 hours. I was in horrible pain, my husband and I were starving, I was not happy with the results of the mold he was showing me and I was mad that he was trying to say that I was changing the material of the teeth I was told I was getting. I finally said I was ok with the bottom teeth and they told me that I could come back Thursday at noon for the delivery of my permanent implants. They did not do new impressions of my upper gumline either. We finally left at 9pm. I rested on Wednesday. I received a call at 11am Thursday morning asking if I could come in the next day, Friday, instead of noon that day. I told the girl "No I cannot come in tomorrow. We live 5 hours away and we have to be back tomorrow for work." She put me on hold and came back and said "ok, well, can you come in at 5pm today? Or we can do next week." I couldn't believe she asked that and I said "I can't come back next week. I can't just keep driving 5 hours to see you! I will be there at 5pm." My husband and I arrived at 4:45pm. While we were sitting there waiting to be seen two upsetting things happened. The first was that I heard 2 employees talking and one asked the other "what time does the lab close today?" and the second was the receptionist asking me what time I wanted to come in the following Thursday for my follow up/final check appointment. The problem I have with the first part was wondering what time, because I didn't hear the answer to the time the lab closed, we would be there until and the second part really made me mad because I have told them from visit one that I live 5 hours away and I couldn't understand why they couldn't remember that. From asking me if I could "swing by" to refit my dentures to "can you come by tomorrow and if not next week" it really doesn't make a customer/patient feel like they are cared for. So like I said we got there at 4;45pm and at 6:15pm a courier came through the door. The nurse behind the counter said "Whew! You're who we've been waiting for." I was asked to come back not a minute later. I sat in the dental chair, my husband sat in the other chair and the nurse proceeded to take out my upper temporary implant. He then put in the new top one and then the new bottom one. The doctor came in and tightened them down and then handed me a mirror. I immediately started crying. Not happy tears. They are absolutely horrible. They do not look at all like real teeth (as far as shape and size) and the bottom ones stick out farther than my real teeth would, it truly feels like I am wearing a mouthguard. The upper implant does not fit against my gums at all. There is a huge gap in the right rear area and I can feel the anchor with my tongue. I can actually slide my tongue into the gap. The bottom teeth have a huge gap all the way around between the bottom of the implant and my gums. I asked the doctor about that and he said "well when you come back in a couple months we can fix that." He asked my why I was so upset and I was crying and couldn't talk. My husband spoke for me and said "she is upset because they don't look real, they don't look anything like the sample photo they took back in August and you had the nerve to tell us that it's because WE changed the material type. We didn't change the type. These are not $46,000 teeth and this whole process has been horrible. We have been lied to since day one and it seems like no one cares, that you got your money and that's all this is about to you." The doctor said "I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say." I told the doctor and my husband that I was just ready to go. The doctor said that they would try and make it right next time I come in. I told the sales rep on our VERY FIRST phone call that the only reason I was considering driving 5 hours to get implants with Nuvia was because they could do it in a week. I truly believe that I was lied to when she said she had checked with the surgeons who reviewed the multiple scans I sent saying that they said everything was ok and I was a perfect candidate for the implants in a week.