Columbia University Dental Associates

DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME HERE. They are terrible. I came in at 11am for an 11am apt. They didn’t see me until 11:40. The hygienist was unprofessional and I ended up leaving after 5 mins. Complete waste of my hour. Do not go there. I just read all the previous reviews and wish I had before. Trust the reviews. Do not go there at any cost. Even if you’re a graduate student and don’t have other insurance. Avoid the hassle and terrible experience.

I suspect that some reviewers are talking about the facility on Amsterdam Avenue, not on 116^th between Amsterdam and Morningside. They might be connected in some administrative way, but I am writing about the 116^th St office, where Dr Jennifer Lipiac is the (only?) dentist now, at least on a regular basis (she took over in about 2014 from Dr Richard Low). It is possible that other doctors come in periodically for specialty consultations, but Dr L is the «main dentist» here. My family has been a customer at this dental office for many years, and we have found the office to be professional and courteous. The hygienist I see is super friendly, and I always see the same one so there is some continuity. My visits with the dentist are short, but fine. Frankly, its up to the customer to know what their insurance covers. When I’ve asked in advance for the cost of various procedures, I get a straight answer.

I am a current Columbia Graduate student and therefore this is the only place that our horrible «health insurance» covers. First and foremost, this was the most painful cleaning I have ever had in my entire life — my mouth is bleeding pretty badly and I am in a lot of pain.
Similar to other reviewers, they tricked me into making an appointment even though there was no dentist on site to examine me, thereby forcing me to come back for an additional appointment. I am not sure whether my horrible Columbia insurance will cover the second appointment as we are only allowed one visit per academic year (as noted by other reviewers).
DO NOT VISIT THIS OFFICE UNLESS IT IS THE ONLY OPTION

UPDATE: insurance there only covers 1 cleaning per academic year, information they didn’t share with me after scheduling me for 2 cleanings. I probably would’ve paid for the second cleaning ($ 94), but they should be upfront about that.

I had a terrible experience here. After a cleaning, they told me the dentist wasn’t there and I’d have to come back for a second visit, and that the whole thing would cost over $ 500. When I refused the second visit, they tried to charge me more money to email my x-​rays to another dentist. The hygienist was extremely thorough — it was the most painful cleaning I’ve ever had — but I have my doubts about how necessary that level of roughness is.

I was very concerned about the negative reviews before going there, but it turned out OK. It is the only clinic that graduate students’ insurance covers so I decided to give it a shot. However bad it used to be, they have improved their service. The receptionists are nice and the doctors are patient. They did an x-​Ray, a cleaning and a dental check for me, asked me about my eating habits and gave me some advices. No cavity was found so that was all. Everything is good so far.

IGNORE ALL NEGATIVE REVIEWS.
The dental office has changed a lot, I believe, in the past couple months. They have taken a different direction in which the office does not have anymore interns. I visited this office for the first time in June for a quick cleaning.
From there, they discovered a HUGE cavity that was to be treated immediately. This is when I met Dr. Oh, an amazing dentist who led me through my whole procedure, step-​by-​step, and made sure I was aware of what was going on. He mentioned the prices and said I was welcome to consider other dental offices too. However, this office also provides a student discount, and is very ideal for those that are on a budget.
My cavity removal/​treatment required several appointments, but each time, with Dr. Oh and the dental assistant, I felt very comfortable and respected. Also the entire procedure was pain-​free, which I was very thankful for.
I would definitely go again if any dental issues arise and would easily recommend the office to anyone.

This is a review of Columbia Morningside Dental on Amsterdam and 121 Street. I was forced to go to Columbia’s lousy dental practice when I was a graduate student. Stupidly, I kept going after I got a real job because I was simply lazy. The service was always bad, the hygienists were beyond terrible, and the prices were very high. The last time I went the hygienist assigned to me, a woman named Luz, was so rude, patronizing, and bossy that I determined to buy dental insurance and go somewhere better. I’m sorry I didn’t make that decision years ago. Avoid Columbia Morningside Dental unless you’re a grad student and don’t have a choice.

TERRIBLE PLACE!
The doctors are pretty good but can’t stand the administrative staff. The staff tries to charge you absurd amounts of money for simple procedures. BEWARE of this place. The staff definitely doesn’t have the best interest of the patient.
1. First issue — scheduled an appointment, was there 10 min before and 30 min after my appointment the admin staff finally told me I would need to reschedule. This was after asking them what was going on every 10 min but they kept saying the doctor was on the way.
2. They never inform you how much different procedures will cost until after. FYI — they are expensive.
3. I scheduled a simple meeting to discuss retainers/​braces (10 min discussion) and found out they wanted to charge me $ 85. I tried discussing with the staff with no help and then they said they would discuss with the Manager but the manager was gone for the day. Then I came back a couple weeks later and was informed, oh yeah, we haven’t forgotten, the manager is just out due to an injury. Ha yeah I bet.
4. I had a couple of fillings put in, prior to didn’t have any issues but they found something and thought it would be to do the fillings. I did, then had issues with one being sensitive/​hurting while eating, scheduled a new appointment and they tried to charge me $ 90, and said I may have to come back to have the filling redone! I definitely was not having that and they kept trying to argue with me until they brought the doctor out and she was on my side and informing them I shouldn’t be charged.
If you are a Columbia student, don’t worry, there are other places that take the insurance and no need on wasting time with this place!
HORRIBLE SERVICE!!!

I work at Columbia, so going here was a convenient choice for several reasons. However, I think I’ll now look into other options.
My first experience was actually good. My appointment started on time, the tech was very friendly, and I like the dentist (Dr. Bittner). When I scheduled a follow-​up appointment to have a small cavity filled, I also made an appointment with the oral surgeon to discuss removal of my wisdom teeth. That’s when things started to go downhill.
After my filling, I was told the oral surgeon was on her way and would be there in 5 minutes. I waited in the packed waiting room for half an hour past my appointment time, only to be told she was dealing with an emergency and wouldn’t be in for possibly another hour. Having to get back to work, I had to reschedule for a month later. I wasn’t particularly happy, but emergencies happen.
When I went back, I waited another half hour past my appointment time. I approached the desk and explained that this was all starting to get a bit ridiculous. Ten minutes later, I finally got to see the oral surgeon. She promptly recommended having my wisdom teeth extracted. At this point, I asked how much the procedure would cost, and was told by more than one person in the office that my insurance would cover it. The reason I asked about the price was that it was bad timing financially to have a pricey procedure done, which I explained. I was given no cost estimate on my way out, only told to call and make an appointment and to speak with someone at the hospital about insurance coverage, but reassured again that I’d be covered.
I called the hospital and spoke with a woman who gave me yet another number to call about insurance, but she did go ahead and schedule an appointment for me the next week. I made plans accordingly for the surgery. However, when I called the number she provided, I was told that I should have received an estimate from the Columbia Dental Associates office, and that, though I was in fact covered by insurance, I would likely still have to pay nearly $ 800 out of pocket. I was then referred BACK to the Dental Associates for the appropriate cost estimate. When I called their office to discuss this issue, they put me on hold for several minutes and passed me back and forth between parties, all of whom were now informing me that yes, indeed, I would be responsible for paying close to $ 800 for the surgery.
There is a HUGE difference between telling me that my insurance would cover me and providing me with an estimate of $ 800. Not only did they not provide the paperwork that they were obligated to give me at the end of my consultation with the oral surgeon, they misled me to believe I would have little to no co-​pay. Luckily, I had enough time to cancel the surgery, but not without being given the run around.
After reading the other reviews here and going through this last experience, I would NOT recommend this practice.

This place is an absolute scam. Please save your teeth and your wallet and don’t go here.
When I came in in October they were not only rude but I left with tears in my eyes at the prospect of paying for the 15+ cavities that they said I had. I even got a hand written roster of each cavity I had.
I happened to find this Unilocal and crossed my fingers that everyone on here was right. I wanted to write this review after I went to a real dentist. I have 5 cavities max. 3 – 4 are surface level (bc my enamel has been wearing down in the front of my mouth) and 1 deep cavity in the back of my mouth. Coming from a line of family members with bad teeth this is such a relief.
I had been to the dentist 7 months before I went in October and I am so thankful that I found these Unilocal reviews. It saved me so much pain and money.
Do not trust these people. Columbia students there IS an insurance plan that you can get through Aetna. I had called to try to find out about one and everyone I spoke to said there wasn’t any plan. THERE IS. GO TO A REAL DENTIST THAT YOU CAN TRUST.

I went again to get the filling problem fixed and this time requested a different dentist — Dr. Pichardo. SO MUCH BETTER right from the start. Before I even walked in she had already pulled my records and x-​rays and knew what was going on. She took the time to ask me about the pain I was feeling. This might seem basic but nonetheless was in stark contrast to the other dentist. Dr. Pichardo was very communicative throughout the whole procedure, making sure I was comfortable and explaining to me what was going on. Best of all, she fixed the problem filling and my teeth are better than ever. She filed down the filling perfectly and I cannot even tell that it is there.

Ugh! SOOOO RUDE!
Not only is the receptionist not friendly, the ugly fish mobile drives me crazy while i’m sitting in the chair. I went here a few times and while nothing was great or nothing too bad i always thought– «why am i going here, it’s old, boring and does not have state of the art equipment» but it was so close to work and free with my insurance. now after someone calling once to remind me a about an appointment, i missed an appointment and i get 4 calls in 25 minutes to make sure I pay the $ 25 cancellation policy. I asked since it was my first time to get it refunded and the receptionist was still. .. rude.
I am NEVER going here again.

I wish I had read these reviews a long time ago. I asked Dr. Low directly about two dark, soft spots on my teeth that I worried were cavities. Literally pointed them out during his brief, post-​cleaning exam and said I was concerned about them. Dr. Low said everything was perfectly fine, no cavities, and I trusted his ‘expert’ opinion.
Fast forward to my next visit four months later. What do you know… cavities! In those exact spots! Amazing. Discovered just a week before my international move, leaving no time to get them filled by Dr. Low. Though from the reviews of everyone else, that’s probably a good thing.

DO NOT GO HERE. seriously. I would give it 0 starts if I could.
I have been here twice over the past few years, and both times have been the worst dental experiences I have ever had. While the staff is friendly, the dentists associated with the Columbia Student Health plan DO NOT know what they are doing. Both times I’ve left in pain and with a severely cut up mouth/​gums. The equipment malfunctioned several times during the cleaning process. And I left with my shirt and hair covered in fluoride. I’m going to find another practice covered by my insurance, or skip going to the dentist until I finish my Ph.D. and get real insurance that covers real dentists.

This place is awful and should be avoided at all costs.
I went here because I was in grad school at Columbia and this was the only dentist the student plan covered. The reception staff was nice enough, and the hygienists were okay, but the actual dental services were the worst I’ve ever experienced.
After my first cleaning, I was told that I had three cavities. That seemed odd, because before going back to school, I’d had a great dentist and gotten regular check-​ups and a clean bill of health with no cavities. But I thought, OK, they’re the pros, right? What do I know?
They filled one so-​called cavity alright, albeit slowly and with some discomfort– both of which I attribute to the dentist being a resident (student) and lacking experience. However, midway through drilling out the second «cavity,» the resident said, «Uh-​oh.»
“Uh-​oh” is not what you want to hear from a dentist at that point in a procedure. She told me that she would have to discontinue drilling because it looked different than she’d expected and I would have to go to another facility on campus for a root canal. At no point was she supervised or did she request or suggest a second opinion. Instead, she put in a temporary filling (which fell out three days later) and told me to call Columbia’s School of Dental Surgery.
Columbia’s School of Dental Surgery apparently gets its customer service training from the honey badger, because they did not pick up the phone once in my 20-​odd attempts to call them. I kept getting a voicemail message that said the mailbox was full and could not receive more messages. I double-​checked the number with the original Dental Associates and was told that was normal and to just keep trying.
Six weeks (!!) later I finally got an appointment for the root canal after looking up some random administrative number within the School and wriggling my way through their phone system and then begging the real person on the line not to hang up on me and to help me get an appointment. By this time I’d been walking around with an empty drilled-​out crater in the back of my mouth for five weeks and four days. I count those as some of the most uncomfortable days I’ve ever had.
The root canal took three appointments of nearly three hours each because the student dentists were learning their trade on me. If I were queasy about dentists, I might’ve died of fright. As it was, it was just very painful and a huge waste of time and money, because the *real* dentist I saw after graduating told me I didn’t have a third cavity and I likely hadn’t needed the first filling or the root canal, either.
I cannot say strongly enough what a negative experience I had with this clinic, and I’ve heard similar horror stories from my Columbia classmates– many of whom have also undergone slow, painful fillings or been told they had ridiculous numbers of cavities that a second opinion determined were likely completely fabricated.
To recap: This place is AWFUL and should be AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS.

Wow! Wish I would’ve read these reviews before waiting THREE MONTHS for my appointment.
So, the people who work there get 4 – 5 stars, I thought they were lovely. However, the work they do gets 1 star. Long story short, my experience echoes a few of those grad students who went here because it’s the only place our insurance covers: before I went back to school, I had a real job with great benefits and I’d been getting my teeth cleaned every 6 months with NO cavities. But this place told me I had 8 cavities and needed 3 filled ASAP. I left feeling so weird and ashamed, and it took a few weeks to question the validity of their diagnosis.
I want to emphasize that the dentist was super-​sweet and very smart, but was a RESIDENT, not a real dentist yet, and his inexperience showed. Further, the equipment malfunctioned and we had to wait a while as the assistant, obviously not interested in being helpful, changed it out. He also forgot to floss me in the cleaning. Lastly, my guess is it’s not so much about money-​grubbing but overzealous young residents that results in too many of us being told we have a million cavities or need other work.
WHAT TO DO: Sign up for Aetna Advantage Dental Plan. The annual premium is $ 264 for students or $ 959 for the student and family plan.
. This link will lead you to the Aetna Student Health Website where you may enroll and PICK OUT A REAL DENTIST!
It’s so worth the extra money– these are our teeth, for Pete’s sake!

The first time I saw Dr. Low he was very nice and welcoming. I have major fears of dentists having encountered so many mean ones in the past. I felt relieved.
THEN, I had to go to get a filling. I was literally 5 minutes late and the receptionist called and was pretty rude.
«Are you almost here?»
«Yes, I’ll be there in 5 minutes.»
«Oookkkaaayy.» Sigh, hang up.
I made a mental note to have a word with Dr. Low about how rude his receptionist was. Little did I know that I was about to have one of the craziest dental experiences of my life (and having Irish heritage – along with the teeth, I’ve had many zaney dental experiences).
Dr. Low ignored me when I came in and his assistant (who is actually nice) lead me to the room. A few minutes later (And please, keep in mind, I am generally a punctual person and was literally 10 minutes late for this), Dr. Low stormed into the room, clearly pretty annoyed and was slamming things around.
«Um, I’m really sorry to be late. My boss was talking to me and held me up.»
In a pinched, high tone, «Yeah, well, people want to go home.»
Then he lowered my seat down (pulling my hair as he did). It was like speed dentistry, he was bossy and mean. We had made the appointment over a month ago. He didn’t even go over what he was going to do. I thought (and for all I know may be right, I seriously would not put it past Dr. Low to do unnecessary dentistry!) that I was only getting one filling. Imagine my surprise when he started digging around in a second tooth.
«Wait a minute!» I shouted with instruments sticking out of my mouth. «I thought just one? What are you doing?»
He wasn’t phased «No. Two. Two.» He said, not stopping to explain. Man, he wanted to get out of work on time.
It was HORRIBLE.
The next day I called the receptionist and said, «Listen, transfer my records to a new dentist.»
«Can I ask why?» She said, though I doubt she really cared.
«Well, I felt like Dr. Low was pretty angry that I took up his time yesterday. I don’t think I’d like to take another minute ever.»
I tell this so that if you’re afraid of mean dentists, you’ll hopefully be able to avoid this one.

Agreed — this should be listed as Columbia Dental Associates. Their website can be found here:
I have major dental problems — in addition to unfortunate genes, I had the misfortune of having parents who were terrified of the dentist. Thus, by the time I came to see Dr. Low, I was in serious need of some major dental work.
Four crowns and two root canals later, I have spent a great deal of time in this capable man’s chair, and I can wholeheartedly recommend him to all. His demeanor is calm and friendly (but not overly-​friendly — he doesn’t make you feel like you have to try to chat when he’s drilling!), and he’s tremendously gentle. He isn’t shy with the drugs if you are someone who needs them (I even need them for cleanings, and given our history together, he is very understanding about that), he’s extremely thorough but conservative about recommending major courses of treatment. I’ve never felt that he up-​sold me on procedures (recommending a root canal before it was time) when other dentists might have.
He also runs very much on time and often has early appointments. His entire staff is very professional, the dental hygienists are incredibly thorough, and although the office isn’t terribly fancy or full of the very latest equipment, it is clean, bright and sufficient.
My one quibble is this: Dr. Low only accepts Aetna Dental Insurance or the Columbia University Dental Plan. My insurance has lapsed for a few months, and unfortunately, his private, pay-​as-​you-​go rates are out of my price range. I also had a problem when I was traveling and wanted to speak with Dr. Low directly to ask his advice, but he has a fairly strict policy of not speaking with patients directly (I did eventually get to speak with him, but it was a process). If you are looking for a dentist that is more personable in that fashion or who has affordable rates without dental insurance, he may not be for you. However, if you are seeking an exceptionally qualified, pleasant, thorough and gentle dentist, I highly recommend him.

Okay, so I have no idea why this listing comes up as «trustees of columbia university» because I think the actual name of the practice is Morningside Dental or something like that.
Anyways, I have heard some NIGHTMARE stories of dentists in NYC. I hate going to the dentist, period, and it has taken me a long time to finally consent to going as an adult. Good thing too, because they found 4 cavities. Ugh.
The office is nice and clean. It is not a super fancy Park Avenue type of place, but it is very very nice looking. They took a bajillion x-​rays (owwie), which was probably a good thing — really capturing all angles of my mouth and teeth. I saw Dr. Richard Low, and he was great. Spent time answering my questions, and wasn’t short or grumpy with me.
I will be back to get my cavities filled, and feel confident knowing that I have a reputable place to go to. I would recommend them to anyone looking.