dental malpractice

A dentist was to perform an apecoectomy and retrograde filling on tooth # 4 of which a root canal he performed was failing.

He performed the surgery on tooth #5 the wrong tooth, never told me, did not show me the post op xrays, and dismissed everything as ok.

The insurance claim says tooth #4.
I had a molar extraction when I was a kid which might confuse
the numbering, but the dentist was aware of this since day 1, 1990.

In the meantime I am trying to heal from the destruction of a perfectly healthy tooth while the bad tooth is still in there causing me grief in my jaw.

It is also a concern that after the dentist filled #4 in 1998, I had severe pain, put up with it til the end of the year, when he performed a 1 visit root canal. This is the tooth that was supposed to have the roots clipped off, but instead, the neighbor was done by mistake, i was not told.

It is 2 months later, I am stll in pain because of the wrong apeco and that the original infection is still there.

In the future, I will also need future activity such as crowns on both of these teeth.

What am I entitled too?

I called their emergency number last night and hopefully they will
schedule me in so I can see the post op xrays and confront the dentist .

In most states you have the right to a legible copy of your dental chart (treatment history) from this dentist in addition to rights to the original X-Rays and a current copy of your patient transactions record, simply by sending a certified letter and requesting them. They usually have about two weeks to legally comply with your request. You probably have receipts of past treatment. Problem is, most dentists will smudge the X-rays if they think you are going to use the images against them in a legal action. Call the state dental licensing board and the BBB to see if he has made mistakes or defrauded other people in the past. I am not a lawyer and your situation may be very different from my experiences. cm