Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey sued Aspen Dental Dec. 9, alleging that the Chicago-based DSO used bait-and-switch advertising campaigns to attract patients.
The lawsuit alleges that Aspen Dental violated the state's consumer protection law and agreements it made in a 2014 settlement for similar allegations.
According to a Dec. 9 news release from the attorney general, Aspen Dental charged customers for services that were advertised as free and did not fulfill other claims it advertised.
In 2014, Aspen Dental agreed to pay $990,000 to settle allegations of deceptive advertising and failing to refund patients. It also agreed to pay $770,000 in restitution to first-time customers who paid for services advertised as free.
In a Dec. 10 emailed statement to Becker's, a spokesperson for Aspen Dental said that the attorney general is relying on old information to support the lawsuit and that it intends to fight it.
"We have been cooperating with the [attorney general's] office since the beginning," the spokesperson said. "We’ve not only responded to their massive demands, but most, if not all of the concerns raised by the [attorney general's] office that we’ve known about, were addressed long ago, whether we agreed with them or not. In fact, a judge observed on the record that we acted in good faith during the [attorney general's] multiyear investigation and declined to order sanctions against us that the [attorney general's] sought."
Management service company the Aspen Group operates more than 25 Aspen Dental-branded offices in Massachusetts.