Complaint Review: Gentle Dental

I visited the Gentle Dental San Francisco location on 12/17/2012 and provided my insurance information. Seven months later, on 6/24/2013, I received a call from a collections agency that my bill with Gentle Dental was never paid and that they had been sending notices to the wrong address for six months. I also learned that they never made any attempt to call me (although that was the first thing the collections agency did). I spoke to Gentle Dental shortly thereafter and had them resubmit the claim to my insurance which immediately paid the bill (on 7/20/13).

 Gentle Dental, despite repeated requests, did not inform the collections agency, and the collections agency reported the claim to the credit agencies in early August. I have since tried multiple times with both the collections agency and Gentle Dental to get this fixed but they are giving me the run around. The collections agency (CB Merchant Services) keeps claiming they've received nothing from Gentle Dental and they can't do anything until they receive confirmation that the amount has been paid. The local Gentle Dental office says they've told them it's been paid and claim they've even left voicemails. They recommended I reach out to Gentle Dental corporate, but all the numbers I've been given are to impenetrable, circular voicemail trees. 

There wouldn't have been a problem if Gentle Dental had submitted my insurance information correctly 9 months ago. Now that everything's paid, all I need is for them to call the collections agency and tell them the account is paid. I don't understand why this is so hard. This has been the worst experience I've ever had with a company and this incorrect negative report on my credit card is a huge problem.