Dr. Justin Scott (Pure Dental Health).
A Georgia dentist wants his license back after getting suspended for allegedly obliterating people”s mouths with shoddy orthodontic work, including a woman who suffered from bone necrosis after taking out a $20,000 loan for “poorly placed” implants.
Dr. Justin Scott, of Pure Dental Health in Atlanta, says it is he who is the victim after being “summarily” stripped of his license via a suspension order from the Georgia Board of Dentistry, according to a legal petition filed Monday, which was obtained by Law&Crime.
“The order is unlawful,” Scott’s lawyer, Matthew S. Coles, writes in the emergency petition for a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction and stay of the board’s suspension.
“The board knew of every allegation by June 2025, received Dr. Scott’s written responses, inspected both practice locations on Sept. 10, 2025, observed the cited conditions, and left without any emergency directive,” Coles says. “It took no further action for six months. An agency that inspects, does nothing, then invokes emergency power six months later has negated any claim of immediate danger.”
The allegations against Scott — which center around implant placement, root resorption and “occlusal findings” — do not warrant emergency action and are simply “disagreements resolved through peer review and ordinary process, not emergency suspension,” the petition says.
“The board does not allege any expert reviewed Dr. Scott’s care, and offers no expert opinion that any patient was endangered,” the document adds, alleging that his suspension has caused “permanent and irreparable” harm.
“Dr. Scott’s Buckhead practice is shuttered, 12 employees face unemployment, and hundreds of patients have lost access to ongoing care,” Coles says. “His practice, listed for sale at $2.1 million, has received only a $300,000 offer since the suspension — a destruction of $1.8 million in value.”
The Board of Dentistry’s order of suspension accuses Scott of multiple offenses related to “poor” orthodontic treatments he carried out on multiple patients. One patient allegedly received implants from Scott that failed and led to “bone necrosis” at two different implant sites that were “poorly placed,” according to the suspension order.
The patient, identified in the order as M.G., had to take out a $20,000 loan for the dental services, the board says. “Patient M.G. received implants from [Scott] which ultimately failed,” according to the suspension order.
Another woman identified in the order suffered from “significant root resorption” on her upper and lower teeth, and she is now “at risk of losing her front teeth,” the board says.
A third patient, who was seen by a different dentist after going to Scott, was described as having “all lower implants” in her mouth removed. “Patient is over closed, decreased VDO due to makeshift denture, no occlusal stops, therefore torquing mandibular condylar area,” the subsequent treating dentist wrote in a follow-up report, according to the board’s suspension order.
A fourth person, who was also seen by a different dentist after going to Scott, suffered from “multiple conditions that required correction as a result of poor orthodontic treatment,” the board says.
An investigation and on-site probe of Scott’s dental facilities in Dunwoody and Atlanta found “extensive and pervasive failures of sanitary practice, sterilization and infection control,” according to the board.
The failures included “improper” sterilization techniques and storage, with instrument packs being found opened in drawers and “improper” seals on sterilized packages; a failure to maintain maintenance logs; expired supplies — including anesthetic cartridges, medications, and patient supplies — found in procedure rooms, the supply closet, and the refrigerator; “improper” instrument storage, including wet instrument packs on the counter after being pulled from a sterilizer; and other issues.
“I have no teeth, I have no functional teeth,” said Tangie Larkin, one of Scott’s former patients, in an interview with local ABC affiliate WSB. “This side broke all the way off,” she said.
Patrick Archibald, another alleged former patient, told the outlet he “can barely talk” after getting work done by Scott.
“My bottoms are not done at all,” he said. “My friends will tell you there are times I just sat there and cried and cried at night. I want my mouth fixed I want what I paid for. Because five years later all this money in and instead of my dream teeth I have no teeth.”
Neither Scott’s lawyers nor the Georgia Board of Dentistry responded to Law&Crime’s requests for comment on Tuesday.
