Letter to my dentist

Dear Dr. Lekic,

I am writing to inform you of my disappointment at the tactics employed by your current office assistant. I have been a good client of yours for the past several years and I have always been satisfied with your work and the work of your hygienists and previous office staff. However the aggressive and unwarranted methods of your current office help deserve mention.

A few months ago I booked a tentative Saturday appointment with your office. The condition of this, to my understanding, was that I would respond with a verbal confirmation when your assistant called me back later in the week. I did not respond to the message left by your assistant which to my mind means I was not prepared to make the appointment. Your assistant insists that this booking was already confirmed when in fact we agreed otherwise.

Following this the assistant claimed I owed $50 for a missed appointment, a fee she later said she was willing to waive if I booked another appointment. The fact that she was willing to waive the fee shows me that she either feels a certain degree of culpability, or is deviously attempting to retain my business through coercion. Either way I fully intended to re-book, despite the fact that I was in a sense being blackmailed, but circumstances made that difficult for me, and I no longer have the time for a cleaning.

I am planning to move very shortly and so I called again to ask for my records. When I made the request your assistant reasserted the claim that I owe you a fee of $50 and said my records will not be released without it. Dr. Lekic, this is an unjustified fee in light of the understanding between myself and your assistant with regard to the appointment in question. It raises concerns about your practice in my mind and I am tempted to raise these problems with your association. Furthermore, despite the fact that you are very talented dentist and employ a really good hygienist I cannot recommend your services to any of my friends and associates in the future based on the actions of your office help. I urge you to resolve this issue by allowing me to access my records without having to pay the $50 your office claims I owe.

Sincerely,