MILWAUKEE – Patients at a closed dental office in Milwaukee dispute their debt after receiving collection notices in the mail.

It has been years since their last cabinet appointments.

Anthony Sutton says his visits to Dr. Molar Family Dentistry were for the most part painless. However, Sutton’s Pain came three years later in the form of two collection notices. One review was for Sutton for $ 750 and the other for his wife, Dana Olivero-Sutton, for $ 550.

“[Dr. Molars] never said you owed anything, ”Sutton said.

The Suttons are not the only ones to be warned.

Other former patients emailed Contact 6 saying their reviews came “out of nowhere.” One man wrote: “All invoices have been prepaid in full and squared”. Another person described the reviews as “a big scam”.

The invoices were sent by Andie Family Dentistry, a trade name for Dr. Molar Family Dentistry Corp. The Department of Financial Institutions told Contact 6 that it had “not received or filed any dissolution documents” for Dr Molars.

Sutton says a lawyer advised him to settle with the collection agency.

“I think it’s unfair,” Sutton said. “I don’t think it’s the right thing to do.”

Contact 6 visited two former premises for Dr Molar’s dental offices, but found vacant buildings. At Dr Molar’s former location at 93rd and Bluemound, an oral surgeon’s office had moved into space. His staff said at least a dozen people had stopped by their dental office to complain about collection notices they had received from Dr Molar Family Dentistry.

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The Better Business Bureau (BBB) ​​says the two complaints it has received about Dr Molar’s family dentistry are the only two it has received in 15 years.

“It wasn’t a problem before that,” said Lisa Schiller, BBB director of investigations. “All we know at this point is that the phone numbers are disconnected and the company is not responding to complaints.”

Contact 6 wrote to lawyer Nancy Wilson, the registered agent of Dr. Molar Family Dentistry Corp.

On August 18, Wilson told us in an email, “Unfortunately, I cannot comment on the pending legal cases, but these are collections that occur in the normal course of business for unpaid invoices.”

Consumer lawyer Nathan DeLadurantey has filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of another patient of Dr Molar, claiming the man’s debts were either already paid or do not exist.

“When they came out, they were told their account was settled. That they had been settled,” DeLadurantey said.

Contact 6 reached out to Dr. Molar Family Dentistry through her still active Facebook page and spoke to a woman who identified herself as a former office manager, who remains the administrator of the page. She said the closures and collection notices were a fallout from the departure of a dentist who was at the heart of the practice. She described him as a “caring” employer who was kind and generous to his patients.

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The dentist underwent heart surgery in 2018 and became disabled. Custom Dental Solutions owner Corrine Jameson-Kuehl told Contact 6 her company was hired by a conservator to run the practice while the dentist recovers. The dentist later died.

Meanwhile, Jameson-Kuehl says it became known that there were other dental office owners and that the dentist was “not the legal owner of the office.”

She says Custom Dental Solutions worked with the legal owners for another six months and during that time one of their employees left Custom Dental Solutions to work with Dr. Molar Family Dentistry.

“The experience was incredibly traumatic from a business standpoint and the toll it took with all the twists and turns of ownership, drama, truth, etc. was appalling,” Jameson-Kuehl wrote to Contact 6 in an email.

“I feel bad for the patients who really loved their doctor and probably really miss them,” Jameson-Kuehl wrote.

To better understand the Central Collection Corporation Suttons invoices, Contact 6 contacted Delta Dental of Wisconsin, their supplier at the time. Delta Dental responded by launching a detailed audit of Suttons billing history.

“We understand that it is concerning when unexpected invoices arrive, especially when they appear to be fraudulent,” Delta Dental wrote in an email to Contact 6. “We have Mr. and Mrs. Sutton in mind in this matter and, as such, we are doing everything in our power. we can support them. “

Among Delta Dental’s findings were two claims which it said were not submitted to Delta Dental for payment by Dr Molar Family Dentistry. The insurer sent the Suttons a check for the amount it would have covered in 2017 as a courtesy.

On September 13, lawyer Nancy Wilson wrote to the Bureau of Consumer Protection about the Suttons.

In his letter, Wilson said his client would “write off” Olivero-Sutton’s remaining $ 881.20, “not because they’re wrong … but rather to avoid having to spend more money on fees. lawyer “.

Wilson wrote that Dr Molars has been “forced to stop providing dental services due to patients such as these patients refusing to pay their bills.”

“It’s a little insulting,” Sutton said.

In his letter to the state, Wilson provided the dates the dental office sent the billing statements to the Suttons. The Suttons deny having received these invoices.

Wilson’s letter also states that “policyholders are over their limit.” However, Delta Dental told Contact 6, “[the Suttons] have not exceeded their annual maximum during the period suggested by the dental office.

Wilson ended his letter by stating that it was “unfortunate” that consumers “could have abused the process for their own benefit.”

“I just think they don’t want the light to shine on what they’re trying to do,” Sutton said.

Contact 6 sent Wilson a copy of Delta Dental’s audit of the Suttons’ billing history on September 22. Wilson questioned the audit but told us that “the official dealer will contact Delta” and that the problem “will be dealt with in the next few days”.

David Turiciano, attorney for Central Collection Corp, told Contact 6 that the company will “make no effort to collect invalid debts. Central Collections will only advance with debts that can be collected at trial.”

If you receive a collection notice and do not acknowledge the debt: send a letter disputing the debt within 30 days. Send the letter by registered mail and ask for an acknowledgment of receipt.

After the collection company receives your letter, they should send you a written debt check, such as a copy of the original invoice. In Wisconsin, debt collectors have up to six years to collect a debt after the obligation to pay arises.